


Shipwrecked

by Profrock



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, FUCKIGN, M/M, Science Fiction, Tentacle Sex, Tentacles, but with feeling and a backsotry, its fucking tentacle porn guys
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-09-25 01:44:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9796931
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Profrock/pseuds/Profrock
Summary: Dan is a young prodigy in the field of marine biology. One day, after coming back from a regular day of observing and cataloging cephalopod migration habits, Dan gets a call from a woman. Her name is Marissa, and she has found something that will shake the world of science to its very core. What is the proper etiquette for falling in love with a fairytale, anyways?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this started out as me writing tentacle porn 'for the lolz' but then it evolved into this entire fic with a backstory and Feelings honestly your guess is as good as mine as to what the fuck is going on
> 
> as always, much love to bk (@/brightblack) for being a wonderful proofreader, coadmin, and lover

_The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too impatient. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach – waiting for a gift from the sea._

_-Anne Morrow Lindbergh_

 

The moment he picks up the Skype call, Dan is hooked. The aging Asian woman on the other side of the screen smiles warmly, moving to the side in order to reveal the creature in the tank behind her.

***

“Holy fuck,” Dan says over the phone to his mother eight hours later, wheeling a hastily-packed bag through the London-Gatwick airport. A soft, almost reverent smile pulls at his lips as he packs himself and his bag into a taxi, even though he knows his mother can’t see him. “You would not _believe_ the job offer I just got, mum.”

“Oh, darling!” Dan glances in the review mirror of the car, and he can see the excitement that tints his mother’s voice reflected in his own eyes. “I’m so happy for you! What is it? When do you start?”

Dan laughs nervously. “I, uh, I can’t tell you, mum. It’s government confidential.”

“Oh.” His mother’s voice is soft, still proud but now tinged with fear. Fear of the unknown. Fear of being out of the loop.

“I was calling you because I’m heading down to Porthcurno in the morning, and I’m not going to be able to be on my phone. I’m just– trust me, mum, this is everything I’ve wanted to do, I promise.”

“A-alright, sweetheart,” his mother manages. She sounds close to tears and Dan is too, just from listening to her. “If you’re sure, of course you have nothing but my unending love and support. Oh gosh, I’m your mother, that’s not what I’m supposed to say. You’re always supposed to do the opposite of what I tell you. So no, this is a terrible idea and I will not stand for it.” She laughs at the end and the iron band around Dan’s heart loosens, just a little bit.

“Would you like to go to dinner tonight, mum? I’ll tell you all I can. I’ll make reservations and pay and everything, it’ll be nice to see you.”

“Daniel.” His mum sounds stern, serious. It’s the voice Dan associates with broken windows and sneaked liquor, marijuana and loud girlfriends. “The day you pay for my dinner is the day you put me in the hospice care or on life support. Just tell me when and where. Wait, aren’t you still in Massachusetts?”

“I’m in a taxi. I just got off my flight. They need me down there asap, but they let me come back for the night.” He worries his lip between his teeth. “They might have a strict communication policy while on-site, so I wanted to say goodbye before I go.”

“I thought I was supposed to be the one crying and demanding phone calls once a week, not shooing you out of the door with a broom.”

Dan laughs. “I love you too, mum. I’ll see you tonight? Annie’s?” Annie’s is the family-owned Italian restaurant he ate in more often than his own house when he was younger.

“I’ll see you at six.”

***

Dan ignores the food growing cold in front of him, too busy talking to eat. His mother listens earnestly, picking at her own risotto and asking the occasional question.

“It’s– it’s crazy huge, mum. This– this can and likely _will_ change the face of not only marine biology but human biology, history, geography– everything humans know about the ocean may be radically altered.” He takes a moment to shove a forkful of pasta in his mouth, chewing and swallowing hastily.

“How did they find you?” his mother asks. “You said it was an offer.” Dan can tell she chooses her words carefully, not wanting to put him in a position where he has to refuse her information.

“They found me through Cambridge,” Dan explains, resting his chin in his hand. The grey-haired woman over Skype told him that his minor in mythology, major in microbiology, and Master’s work in marine macrobiology made him perfect for the position. “Apparently they contacted my old oceanography professor and he recommended me, and they reviewed my stuff and then contacted me.”

“What about your work in Massachusetts?” Dan’s mother gently guides the conversation towards a safer topic. Dan waves her off.

“I can hand my notes to any one of a dozen post-grads there and have them finish. This is– this is so much bigger than something as trivial as cephalopod migration habitats, mum, this is–“ he shakes his head– “this is ground-breaking. World-changing.”

“Well then, sweetheart, I wish you all the best and then some.” His mother lifts her wine glass, inclining it towards Dan before taking a small sip. Dan smiles warmly and does the same, letting his mother tell him all about the two new girls at her daycare as he finally allows himself to eat.

***

Marissa, as Dan learns the woman is named, is warm and sunny, but Dan gets the feeling she will tolerate little to no bullshit.

“I must be honest with you, Dan,” she says, brushing down her flyaway hairs in what Dan can already recognize is a nervous tic. “You are our first choice for this position. I need an assistant, and from what I hear and what I see, you are simply astounding in your field. Top of your class in marine ecology, invertebrate physiology, and cephalopod zoology, I’m impressed.”

Dan flushes slightly at the praise. “Thank you, honestly. I am honored that you think so highly of me.” He can’t help that his eyes are continuously drawn to the tank over Marissa’s left shoulder, the one that holds a half-man, half-tentacle creature. Dan honestly has no idea what to make of the creature, referred to as ‘Phil’ by Marissa. He looks like what a child would imagine a mermaid to look like, but with the bottom half of an octopus instead of a fish.

“I found your paper on the proposed physiology of mermaids,” Marissa continues, and Dan’s eyes flicker back to her face. He groans and covers his face with his hands. “Mermaids were what got me into marine biology as a kid. I wrote it as a joke, it was–” “–Good,” Marissa finishes for him, raising one eyebrow as if daring Dan to argue. He doesn’t.

“That is exactly the kind of out of the box thinking I need on my team, Dan. We’re breaking new ground here. There is no handbook, no lab sheet to tell us how this goes. It’s all going to be entirely new and mostly theoretical. We have no idea what we’re up against.” She levels her gaze at Dan. “I want to offer you a position on my team. Your actual job will be determined as we go, but your official title will be ‘Research Assistant.’”

Dan hikes his jaw up from where it hangs slack. “I– Are you kidding.”

“I am more serious about this than I have ever been.” Marissa steeples her fingers, glancing Dan over. “We would pay for you to fly to Porthcurno, where we’re stationed. We have apartments on-site, and you likely won’t be able to leave often, if really at all.” She takes a breath.

“Look, Dan. This is beyond serious. Everything we thought we knew is being shaken to the core by this discovery. We’re operating under MI-6 coverage and protection. Tip-top secret. The only people who know about this are the people on my team, the British government, and, now, you. You won’t be able to tell your family and friends about this now, if even ever. You’ll be cooped up on base for any number of months, and any sort of outward communication can and will be highly scrutinized.

“But you’ll be on the cutting edge of science. We are exploring entirely uncharted waters, Dan. The things we learn will go down in history.” She pauses, a little bit out of breath from her little speech.

“I’m very sorry I can’t give you more time to think this over. I need an answer, Dan, I’m sorry–”

“If my flight can have a six-hour layover in London-Gatwick, I’m in,” Dan says. Marissa smiles.

“I’ll be seeing you very soon, Dan,” she says before hanging up. Dan slumps back in his desk chair, staring at his blank apartment walls but seeing what looks to be a comatose man who lacks legs, his tentacles curled around him as he floats in a ten-foot tank. Dan starts packing.

***

“A fisherman found him fifty miles off the west coast of Africa, about a hundred miles southeast of Dakar,” Marissa explains, leading Dan across the base.

The MI-6 base is nothing like Dan expected. He expected barbed wire fences and dozens of armed soldiers at every turn. Instead, a muscular, smiling man wearing a dark olive shirt and khakis, mirrored aviators pushed up onto his shaved head, checked their ID cards and happily let them through the electric gate. It was only as they drove past and Dan looked back that he noticed the AK-47 leaning up against the wall inside of the small booth. He visibly shivered. 

The lawns are green and impeccably kept, the paths paved and lined with colourful flowerbeds.

“There are a handful of other things going on on this base,” Marissa explains, pointing out buildings as they pass. “That ID card you have? You better not lose it. It lets you into the buildings here.” They pause in front of a door and Marissa slides her keycard to demonstrate. The door clicks and she hauls it open, motioning for Dan to go through.

The lobby of the building is air conditioned and simply furnished, decorated in shades of purple and gold. Another man wearing a dark olive shirt looks up from behind the security desk and nods at them.

“Your keycard only lets you into whichever buildings you need to be in.” Marissa leads Dan down the hall, their sneakers echoing softly off of the carpeted floor. Pipes ran along the ceiling, occasionally dipping through the walls or the floor, joining or leaving the running march down the seemingly endless hall.

Marissa turns abruptly, opening an unmarked door on her left. “We’re going to meet the team first,” she says, “Then we’re all going to head down to the tank room together.” She pushes the door open, revealing four other people sat around a small, circular table, chatting softly. They all fall abruptly silent as soon as the door opens. Marissa steps inside.

“Everyone, this is Dan. Dan, this is everyone.”

A short, round woman in a hijab laughs, inclining her head politely in Dan’s direction. She doesn’t stick out a hand for Dan to shake, and Dan doesn’t ask for one, inclining his head towards her in the same manner.

“My name is Amaris Stein,” she says, her voice soft and bright and with a smooth hint of an accent. “I am – rather, I was a professor of molecular microbiology at Stanford.”

“Michael Abram,” a tall, loud-voiced man offers, along with his hand. His palm is dark, calloused, and rough, warm against Dan’s own. “I’m a diver. I specialize with sharks, but I hang around other bloodthirsty creatures now and again.” He winks, displaying a smile full of blindingly white teeth. His dreads fall into his eyes and he huffs, scooping them back over his shoulders with one large hand, tying them up with another.

Cairo Jha and Leonard Pines introduce themselves quickly, Ph.D. holders of tropical marine ecology and evolutionary biology respectively. Dan shakes both of their hands, offering a warm smile which Cairo returns but Leonard does not. Or maybe Dan just can’t see it beneath the rather impressive handlebar mustache the older man sports. Dan feels like he could play a pretty good Commissioner Gordon is a Batman movie.

“Now that we’ve all made nice,” Marissa says, drawing all eyes with nothing but the soft authority in her voice, “We have a drugged-up creature straight out of a fairytale sitting pretty two doors down, and we need to learn all we can. Michael, I need you to obtain tissue samples. Cheek swabs, any sort of secretion, skin if you can. We need all we can get. Amaris and I will be on that. Cairo, I want you to find out everything you can about where he was found. Make everyone tell that story again, I don’t care. What is it about that place. Why now? Leonard and Dan, once Michael gets his samples we’re going to let Phil get the toxins out of his system. Observe any and everything he does from the moment he wakes up.”

Dan is still reeling from the first parts of her instruction, but he dutifully hurries along behind Leonard as they all make their way to the room with the tank.

“We’re going to need to transfer him,” Cairo says, her eyes flickering over Phil’s form like she isn’t entirely sure of what she’s seeing. “A creature of that size–” she shakes her head. “He needs a bigger tank, and as soon as possible. It’s not going to be comfortable for him staying in a ten by ten by ten for any longer than necessary.”

Marissa nods. “We have a sixty deep, twenty radius cylindrical tank we can transfer him into as soon as Michael is done.” Cairo nods once before scuttling away to track down her own information.

The creature is even more beautiful up close. His alabaster skin positively glows under the harsh fluorescent lights of the lab, despite the fact that the fisherman caught him in the middle of the tropical ocean. His hair is short and dark, fanning out from his forehead as he floats in the water. His eyes are shut tight, every piece of his body at the mercy of the gently rocking water.

Dan scrutinizes the creature, _Phil_ , he reminds himself. He looks positively human from the waist up – perhaps a little too skinny and a little too hairless, but human nonetheless. Well, except for his blue ears which look like three scaly wings, one layered on top of another. His tentacles are blue-green, darker on the top than the bottom. They have a very peculiar, uncommon shape.

 _Not uniform size,_  Dan scribbles down in his notebook. _Little webbing._

Michael dips into the water, his dreadlocks tied back into a thick ponytail. Dan watches raptly as Michael runs his fingers over Phil’s body, eventually extending Phil’s arm and making an inch-long cut along his outer bicep.

“Why are we doing this in water?” Dan asks as he watches Michael slice a tiny, half-inch by half-inch square of skin off Phil’s bicep, then repeat the process on the base of one of Phil’s tentacles.

“He’s an underwater creature, Dan,” Marissa says. “We don’t want him to suffocate.”

“So much blood is released into the water, though,” Dan says, more to himself than to anybody else. He winces in sympathy as Michael wraps some sort of bandage Dan doesn’t recognize around the bleeding cuts. Whatever it is, Dan hopes is staunches the bleeding, and fast.

***

The next four hours are a whirlwind of activity as the team transfers Phil to the larger tank and he wakes up, taking in his surroundings and poking curiously at the bandages on his arm and tentacle before promptly going ballistic, zipping around his tank and smashing his fists against the glass, slowly growing calmer and calmer as he realizes he can’t do anything to escape. He crumples down into a dejected twist of tentacles on the floor at the center of the tank, his shoulders shaking as if he is crying. Dan’s heart pangs in sympathy but Leonard just squints at Phil and scribbles down more notes, muttering to himself.

***

The next morning, after Dan curses jetlag and hauls himself out of bed at what feels like three in the morning on his Massachusetts body clock but is actually eight am according to the atomic clock on the wall of his mandated apartment, the entire team meets at the cafe on base before making the trek down to the tank room.

“How did his tentacles feel?” Dan grills Michael. Michael blinks. “What do you mean?”

“Did they feel substantial? Did they have any give to them? Were they covered in anything, a slimy layer or anything of the like? Does he have little cirri on the underside of his tentacles, between his suckers?”

Michael cocks his head. “It felt like a very, very firm muscle. I think it only gave because he was out of it, and yes, it was covered with a slimy layer. No cirri, or anything like that, I don’t think”

“Give: no. Mucus: yes. Cirri: no,” Dan mumbles to himself, scribbling something down.

***

“Marissa?” Dan asks, hovering uncertainly in the doorway to the lab. Marissa and Amaris both look up from where they were engaged in quiet conversation over a microscope.

“Yes, Dan?”

“I think I have a theory.” 

Marissa and Amaris wear matching, stunned expressions, and Dan worries his lip between his teeth.

“Look,” he says, setting down the book in his hands. “I’ve been trying to figure out what genus the octopus half of Phil is.” He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose and points to an illustration in the book. “He doesn’t have very much webbing between them, and they’re asymmetrical, so I would peg him as something from the _keuppia_  genus.” He holds up a hand. “Yes, I know they’ve been extinct for millennia, but they’re the only genus I can find with asymmetrical tentacles and little connecting membrane. Look.” He turns the book towards them, pointing at a picture of a fossil, and next to it pulling up a photo of Phil with all of his tentacles fully extended. Two are much longer than the others, four are of medium length and two are shorter. When Dan sets his phone down next to the picture, the tentacles of the fossil and of Phil look exactly the same.

“Colour me impressed,” Amaris says before turning to peer through the microscope again. Marissa nods slowly.

“Talk with Leonard about this. See if he agrees.”

Dan nods and gathers his book and phone back into his arms, turning to go.

“Hey, Dan?” Marissa calls after him as he reaches the doorway. Dan pauses and glances back.

“Good job,” she says softly. “We’ve at least got something, now. You have a good eye. Be on the lookout for other stuff like this.”

Dan smiles huge, doing his best to tamp down the swell of pride in his chest before scurrying off to find Leonard.

A gruff nod and a “you done good, kid,” is all he really gets, but Dan is pretty sure that’s Leonard’s equivalent of writing him a tear-streaked sonnet of praise and devotion.

***

Because Dan is technically the rookie of the team, of course he gets stuck with the night shifts. Michael claims that Dan is young and he doesn’t need as much sleep anyways, whereas the older people need their beauty rest. Dan makes a quip about Michael needing “all the beauty rest possible, good Lord,” and is rewarded with a hearty laugh and clap on the back that makes him stumble forward. For the first time in a long time, Dan feels like he belongs, like he’s part of a team. He wakes up at twelve forty-five a.m with a smile on his face and practically skips across the base, swiping his key card and tossing a smile and a happy wave to the man behind the desk. To the best of Dan’s deductive ability, six different men cycle out from behind the desk on a four-hour basis, but they never really smile or talk or do much of anything. He mostly ignores them, by this point.

Phil almost always hangs out at the bottom of his tank, listlessly swimming in lazy circles. Dan feels bad for him, sighing in sympathy as he slides his glasses on and checks the monitors, scribbling down numbers that correspond to blood pressure and tank temperature and activity level, eventually setting the log down and walking over to the tank, hanging his glasses from the collar of his shirt. Phil halts his circles, crossing the tank curiously. He seems to have figured out the glass separates him from the researchers, and they can’t harm him through it. He hovers underwater lazily, pressing his palms and nose to the glass in order to observe Dan closer.

“Honestly, these past nights, I keep thinking I’m gonna finally wake up arealizeize this has all been a dream,” Dan says with a laugh, crossing his arms and leaning back against the table. A monitor beeps behind him and Phil cocks his head.

“I always feel bad for animals in your situation,” Dan continues, straightening up the books and papers and notes strewn across the table. Dan likes cleaning. It helps clear his head. “But I think it’s even worse because you look human.” He carefully organizes Leonard’s notes, arranging them by date and time taken. Phil makes a soft, muted noise against the glass, and Dan looks up.

Dan likes talking out loud. He’s always talked at pets and stuffed animals and animals he’s studying and unsuspecting colleagues. Something about talking through problems helps him work them out.

So he talks at Phil. He tells the creature about his day, his theories, his experiments. Phil watches Dan putter around the room, occasionally turning in slow circles or making air bubbles with his gills. After he finishes organizing the tables and workstations and even sweeping the floor, Dan checks his phone.

“Shit,” he mumbles to himself. His clock displays ‘ _1:57′_ in bright, glowing numbers. “I’ve been in here an entire hour and I forgot to feed you, I’m sorry.” He hauls himself to the top of the metal stairs that curves around the outside of the tank, already out of breath once he reaches the top.

The top of the tank is retractable plexiglass, forming an air-tight cover. Huge ventilation systems on the ground keep the tank oxygenated, and a heating system next to it keeps the temperature of the tank regulated. A grated metal platform almost touches the top of the plexiglass, extending a good three feet over the edge of the tank. If Dan retracted the cover and sat on the platform, he could easily dangle his feet into the water.

Dan retracts the cover by about a foot, picking up a bucket filled with half a dozen small, snapping crabs and dumping it into the water. Phil, who had floated up to the top of the tank to see what was happening, watches the crabs sink. He looks buck up at Dan with an unimpressed tilt to his eyebrows.

“I know, I know,” Dan sighs, recording the time and contents of the bucket in the log. Recording his every action has become almost second nature to him, with how often he researches in the field. “It’s not that exciting, I’m sorry, but it’s the best we can do for now.” Phil’s eyes follow Dan as he descends the stairs and when Dan looks over they sink even further shut until he’s glaring at Dan from under his brows. Dan throws up his hands and Phil heaves his shoulders as if he sighs, a column of air bubbles bursting at the top of the tank as he swims to the bottom, plucking up one of the crabs and breaking the left claw off with a disinterested snap, sucking the meat from the shell.

Dan freezes for a few seconds, fascinated, before he shakes his head and turns the doorknob, slipping out of the room and into the fluorescently-lit hallway, across the moon- and streetlamp-lit fields, and into his bed. He falls asleep within seconds.

***

The team spends the day focusing intently on their respective tasks. Mercifully, Amaris volunteers to take the midnight shift this night as a show of gratitude towards Dan for cleaning her workstation. Leonard grumbles that Dan messed up all of his notes, but Dan watches him hole punch the entire stack and slip it into a three-ring binder before taking lunch. Michael makes a few jokes, and Phil stares blankly at everyone from the far side of his tank, turning in lazy circles before going to what very much looks like sleep in the middle of his tank.

But, all good things must come to an end, and once again Dan is back on the midnight shift.

“Amaris, you god-tier human,” Dan mutters to himself as he records Phil’s vitals and activity levels. “God bless your soul for the sweet yet fleeting taste of an uninterrupted night’s sleep.” He looks up and sighsw, cracking his joints with a low groan.

“Your tank is so clinical,” he tells Phil. “I’m sorry. I really hope they can get you into a better one soon, once Cairo can accurately recreate your home environment.” He tries to ignore how his voice hiccups after ‘home,’ how he has to force himself to think of Phil as an animal and not as a person. Dan always gets attached to his work, in some cases more than others. He grins as he fondly remembers sobbing into his coworker’s arms after they took him off of the cuttlefish research team. Phil’s human face and features make it even harder for Dan to treat Phil as a specimen, however. Minus his ears and tentacles, he looks like any person Dan would meet in a coffee shop. Hell, he might even hit on hypothetical human Phil in said hypothetical coffee shop.

“Entirely hypothetically,” Dan mutters to himself, shaking his head. He _really_ doesn’t need to have thoughts like this. He tells Phil as much and is met with nothing but the expected blank stare.

“I think Michael is going to try diving with you tomorrow,” Dan says. Phil creases his brow. He looks a lot like Adrian when he does that, Dan thinks, immediately pushing all thoughts of his brother out of his mind. No. He can’t anthropomorphize Phil like this, no matter how much he wants to. Work first.

“Just do your fucking job, Howell, goddamn,” Dan mumbles. sighing loudly and beginning the – too long, in Dan’s humble opinion – trek up the stairs.

This time, the white, ten-gallon feed bucket holds ten liters of water and a dozen small, shimmery fish. Dan opens the tank cover and pours the contents of the bucket in, sputtering when one of the fish hits the water sideways and sends a spray of saltwater into his face. A smile breaks across Phil’s face and he shakes, but Dan doesn’t notice.

He quickly descends the stairs, watching Phil through the side of the tank. Phil looks up as the shimmering bodies dart around for a few frantic seconds before finally calming down, gathering together and swimming in circles. Phil glances back over his shoulder at Dan, looking supremely unimpressed. Phil raises both arms as if to stretch, and Dan briefly notes the lack of any hair covering his body, aside from on top of his head. Quick as a flash, Phil shoots out one tentacle, ripping one of the fish out of the group and bringing it back, grabbing it in two hands. He bites the head clean off, the fish’s twitching body going limp and blood pouring out into the water as Phil chews and Dan watches, spellbound. Phil pops the rest of the fish into his mouth.

Phil eats eight of the remaining eleven fish in much the same way. Dan watches, taking note of small things, like how Phil always started with the head, or he always used one of his longer tentacles, the ones positioned at the side of his hips to first catch the fish. Phil chews and swallows, bones, scales and all, and Dan has to pick op his jaw from where he’s sure it rests on the fucking floor.

“Holy shit,” he breathes. “You’re fucking beautiful.” Phil cocks his head at the words, but Dan puts it down as nothing more than the instinctual curiosity to an unknown sound.

***

There’s something off with Phil the next morning. He floats listlessly in his tank, completely ignoring all of Michael’s attempts to interact with him. Michael hauls himself out of the tank twenty minutes later, wringing out his hair and frustrated.

“He just doesn’t engage,” he spits when Dan asks him what’s wrong. Dan frowns, looking over at the tank. Phil floats upside-down, turning in circles and staring at nothing. For the first time ever in his career, Dan withholds information from his team. He jealously wants the bright light in Phil’s eyes to be only for him.

***

That night Phil is playful, animated, darting back and forth and pressing his palms flat against the glass, grinning wide.

“You’re being very bad,” Dan tells him, like Phil is a primary-age child who pulled a schoolmate’s pigtails. “Acting like this now but not when Michael is in there with you. What is it, hmm? Are you just a fuckwit, is that it?” Phil smiles, and Dan almost wants to describe the tilt of Phil’s lips as bashful. Embarrassed. Which is stupid, because he’s an animal, an animal under Dan’s research care, dammit, and Dan can’t afford to go and get attached. He mutters angrily to himself when he overturns the feed bucket into Phil’s tank – clams, this time – and stalks down the stairs, throwing a middle finger to Phil’s almost hurt look that follows him out.

***

“Cairo, can you go in?” Marissa asks, scrubbing her face with her hands. Cairo blinks.

“Um. I mean–”

“I can go in with you?” Michael offers, looking over at Marissa to make sure it’s okay. Marissa purses her lips, and Dan feels irrationally superior to his teammates for his midnight interactions with the creature. 

“The point is that we need to measure Phil’s reactions to other people,” Marissa explains gently. Michal visibly deflates.

“I can go in” Dan finds himself saying. “I have diving certification and all that, and I’ve been in with squids and the like before.”

“Are you sure?” Marissa asks. Dan bristles slightly. He was taken onto the team to be the jack-of-all-trades, wasn’t he?

“I’m sure,” he says instead. Marissa nods slowly. Dan tries to ignore Michael bridling behind him. A heavy, rough hand comes to rest on Dan’s shoulder and he jumps, but Michael’s smile is as jovial as always.

“I’ll get a second oxygen mask hooked up, then,” he says, disappearing before Dan’s teeth can release his apology.

***

The water is cool, colder than the ocean usually is due to lack of sunlight. Cairo jumps at every shift of the creature under the water, and Dan lays a reassuring hand on her forearm.

“You okay?” he asks. Cairo nods jerkily.

“I’m always so used to looking at animals in relation to their habitats, you know? Always as smaller pieces to a puzzle. Never really as their own unit.” Phil’s jaw drops as he floats past, his long, thick, blue-pink tongue running over his bottom teeth. Cairo squeaks and jumps. “He’s scary,” she admits finally.

“Sharks and everything, I can handle. But this–” she shudders– “he’s such a variable. We don’t even know how intelligent he is. Is he as smart as a human? Smarter?”

“Just follow behind me,” Dan says, ignoring her paranoid train of thought. “Stay behind me if you’d like, and don’t let go of your tube.” The tube Dan is referring to is a long, slender tube capped with a mouthpiece and connected to an oxygen tank at the top of the platform. Since the tank is too small, really, to warrant full-on scuba gear, Michael suggested and designed the current system.

Dan drops into the tank with a small splash, Cario following immediately behind him with a louder splash and small squeak. Phil comes up to them like he did to Michael and Cairo backs away. Dan expects Phil to circle them a few times and leave (like he did to Michael) but instead Phil circles them a few times, wedges himself between Cairo and Dan, hisses at her and wraps a hand around Dan’s bicep. Dan struggles briefly, his mind flashing back to how Phil snapped a crab shell clean in half with his bare hands and very little effort until he hears Michael’s voice from the top of the platform.

“Keep still!” Michael shouts, and Dan distantly hears someone helping Cairo out of the tank. 

“Don’t thrash, don’t panic. Stay very, very still, and don’t make eye contact.” Which is a lot easier said that done, considering the fact that Phil drags Dan down, darting into Dan’s line of sight like he wants to catch his eye.

Dan really, really wants to thrash. He wants to panic. Before all this, before Phil, back when Dan was a regular scientist with a regular job, he had once seen an octopus take out a five-foot dog shark. The shark swam too close and within seconds the octopus overwhelmed the shark, wrapping long tentacles of pure muscle around the vertebrate and overpowering it instantly. Nothing Dan had seen since had even come close to the raw display of strength and dominance he had seen that day. Dan is a lot bigger but a lot less dangerous than a dog shark, though, and he has the wild and sinking suspicion that Phil is both bigger and more powerful than a giant pacific octopus. He squeezes his eyes shut and wishes he had been able to tell his mother that he loved her, just one more time.

When Dan doesn’t feel the suffocating grip of tentacles, he’s curious. When he feels the release of his bicep from Phil’s human hand, he’s apprehensive. When he opens his eyes and sees Phil facing and circling him, a bright, toothy smile on display and a light in his eyes like he is a small child who wants to play tag, Dan is astounded.

 _What the fuck,_  he thinks distantly. If he didn’t need to keep his mouthpiece in, Dan is sure he could have laughed.

“Dan?” Michael calls from the platform, and Dan looks up. The diver is blurry and out of focus through the nearly ten feet of salt water between them, but Dan gives a thumbs up.

“Oh, thank Christ. Dan, I want you to slowly, making yourself seem as non-threatening as possible, swim up towards me.” Dan has no idea how to swim non-aggressively versus aggressively, but he gently starts kicking himself up towards the surface. Phil floats in closer to him and Dan freezes. He has to actively remind himself to breathe.

Phil twists himself in a slow circle around Dan, his tentacles trailing across Dan’s ankles. Dan shivers at the sensation, more out of surprise than disgust. He moves his arms to bring himself higher and Phil lets him, following along at his heels in a way that vividly reminds Dan of a homeless puppy. His head breaks the surface of the water and he gasps, paddling over to the platform and hoisting himself up.

“Dan? Dan, are you okay?” Marissa asks, patting him with a towel. Dan heaves a shaking sigh and nods, coughing slightly.

“Yeah,” he breathes. he coughs again. “Yeah, I’m okay.”

***

“What the fuck was that?” Dan asks accusingly when he comes on for his midnight shift. Michael was leery sending him by himself, but Dan insisted he would be fine. He was just feeding Phil, not taking a dive. Reluctantly Michael let him do, but not before Dan swore up and down that he would call him at the slightest signs of “shit going ass over tits,” to quote Michael.

“Little shit, scaring me half to death, what the fuck,” he mutters, stomping up the stairs and shaking an accusing finger at Phil. “Don’t you fucking dare pull that shit again. Or if you do, pull it with Michael. He’ll know how to kick your ass. Fucker.” He mutters and mumbles his way through the entire feeding. Phil looks, well, for lack of a better word he looks sheepish when Dan stomps back down the stairs and out the door. By the time he gets back to his room, he’s managed to convince himself that Phil couldn’t possibly feel such a complicated and complex emotion. it takes him thirty minutes to fall asleep.

**

The first week on base passes with little fanfare. Marissa gives everyone a watery smile and a clap on the shoulder before ordering everyone to get to work. Cairo shakes whenever she gets too close to the tank, but aside from that it’s all business as usual. Michael tries diving again, but Phil doesn’t even register him, staring ahead at nothing and floating in the dead center of the tank.

***

“We need to see him in motion,” Leonard mutters over lunch the next day, stroking his index finger and thumb over his perfectly waxed mustache.

“Dan, you’re back in,” Marissa says absently, pouring over numbers and figures with Amaris. “Take Michael in with you, this time.”

Having Michael and Dan in the same tank as Phil turns out to be one of the worst ideas Marissa has ever had.

Michael dips into the tank first, treading water and watching Dan slip in behind him before they both dive down. Phil only looks up when he feels the second disturbance of a body in the water, and his focus narrows in on Dan immediately. He barks, a loud, sharp sound, and rushes up towards Dan in a flurry of bubbles, grabbing him by the shoulders and dragging him down again.

Even though he’s expecting it the experience is no less frightening, and Dan can feel his pulse beat faster and faster in his chest as Phil drags his further and further down, until Dan’s head hurts and his ears pop. Michael follows, and Dan is sure he’s cussing up a storm behind his oxygen mask.

As soon as Michael gets within ten feet of Dan Phil turns on him and hisses, baring his teeth and bending his torso in a way Dan has seen far too many times with territorial dogs. His head races, consumed by disconnected thoughts of packs and property and Phil. He hopes Leonard can make sense of it from the floor because Dan is more concerned with not dying right now rather than learning about a fairytale.

Michael freezes abruptly, holding his hands up in the universal signal of ‘ _woah, buddy.’_ It does nothing to calm Phil down, however, and Dan has a chilling moment of clarity. _Michael might_ die _if I don’t do something, and fast._  He puts his hand on Phil’s shoulder, ignoring the half-crazed look of protest Michael send him.

 _Go,_  Dan says with his eyes, swimming down towards the bottom of the tank. The flippers on his feet make him feel like a stumbling gazelle baby, unsure and wobbly and entirely out of his depth. Phil follows, twining and twisting around Dan’s body and letting out a delighted shout of happiness.

Dan plays around with Phil for another few minutes, darting to and fro and letting Phil chase him. Soon Dan’s muscles start to protest and his throat burns from thirst, his eyes blinking hard in the stinging salt water. He pushes off the metal floor of the tank, kicking towards the surface and gasping as soon as his head breaks the small waves that form from the simulated current that ventilates the tank’s water.

He hauls himself onto the platform, gasping, doing his best to ignore the almost sad look Phil sends him. He doesn’t speak to anyone for the rest of the day, his mind too consumed with this beautiful, humanoid creature who just wants to play. In an institutionalized tank, where he’s observed and poked and prodded day in and day out, all Phil wants to do is play. Cairo volunteers to take the night shift, but Dan doesn’t sleep a wink the entire night, his mind spinning with thoughts of pale skin and slitted blue eyes, fairytale creatures and memories of family. He turns over, his shoulder twinging with the ghost of Phil's fingers gripping his skin, digging into muscle. Dan groans, covering his face with his hands. This really is not what he need right now, or ever, please and fuck you very much.


	2. Chapter 2

_No matter how big the sea may be, sometimes two ships meet._

_\- Chinese proverb_

 

Dan slips into the tank room, scrubbing his eyes and pushing his hair out of his face with a groan. The huge, industrial room is starting to feel like home to him, considering how much of his time he spends in it. He makes quick work of logging vitals, pushing his glasses up on top of his head and walking over to the tank, clipboard in hand.

Phil grins big and floats up to Dan, his tentacles propelling him through the water almost hypnotically. Dan notes with unabashed fascination how the long, flexible appendages pinwheel around, each wandering with what seems to be a mind of its own.

“Hello,” Phil says, his low voice distorted through the water and three-inch thick glass, and Dan drops his clipboard seconds before falling flat on his ass. He scrambles back, pushing his glasses up from where they fell down onto his nose.

“Jesus,” Phil huffs, crossing his arms. Two of his tentacles mirror the movement, and Dan can only stare. “Excuse me for trying to be polite.”

“You can talk,” Dan notes, his mind still reeling. Phil looks unimpressed. “If this is the best of your deductive reasoning, I’m surprised they even gave you a master’s degree.”

“You can _sass_ me,” Dan says, awe creeping into his voice. He scrambles forward, scribbling things onto his notepad. “You know what a master’s degree is!”

“Suddenly, I regret this decision,” Phil huffs, his tentacles pulsing occasionally to keep him suspended in place. “Can you come up to the top to talk? It’s much easier to hear you.”

Dan almost breaks something with how fast he scrambles up the metal staircase to the top of the tank, settling on his knees at the very edge of the platform and retracting the tank's cover. Phil pokes his head out of the water, resting his elbows on the platform Dan is sitting on and shaking his heiar out. He splatter's Dan's chest and shins with salt water, but Dan is much to excited to notice, much less care.

“You can breathe out of water?” Dan asks, his pen flying across the page. Phil nods.

“Why haven’t you demonstrated this before?”

Phil’s lips curve up into a sharp grin. “You never asked.”

“How do you know English?” Dan asks, ignoring the snide remark. Phil scratches his nose.

“It’s a survival thing. We have to be able to learn languages fast since there are thousands of them in the ocean. Different dialects, too. Dolphins, for example. The shits not only have different dialects between each species, but each pod has its own localisms.” He rolls his eyes. “It’s fucking exhausting, honestly.”

“Why do you swear so much?”

Phil snorts. “I learned the language from you, assface. What the hell else would I do?”

“Can I touch you?”

Phil startles at that question, his tentacles receding back into the water from where they had started creeping up onto the platform. He recovers quickly, shaking out his dripping hair.

“As long as I can return the favour,” he bargains. Dan nods and Phil hauls himself out of the tank, his tentacles splaying out to support himself as he settles into the best approximation of a sitting position as he can manage.

Dan tentatively reaches out, brushing his fingertips along the wet, almost slimy skin of Phil’s tentacles. Phil’s torso feels like any human’s, albeit a tad colder and entirely hairless. Human skin flows smoothly into tentacle membrane, and Dan fires off every question he can think of as he runs his hands over Phil’s body. Phil sits mostly still, his hands and tentacles occasionally flicking as he answers Dan’s questions efficiently and honestly and with enough salt to put the ocean to shame.

“How does sex work?” Dan asks. Phil laughs that loud, shameless laugh Dan has developed a slight infatuation with over the hour of their conversation.

“I’m gonna take my payment, first,” Phil says, the suckers on the bottom of his tentacles popping as he disconnects them from the floor in order to crawl forward. He trails two tentacles up Dan’s bare arm, the suckers attaching and pulsing minutely before he pulls them off and moves them elsewhere, leaving a mess of light red rings in his wake. Phil wrinkles his nose when he touches dan’s shirt.

“They’re really sensitive,” Phil explains. “It’s like I'm touching, smelling, licking, and tasting you all at once. Your shirt is a funny texture.” Three other tentacles play with the hem, slowly, subtly, working it up so Phil’s remaining tentacles can attach to Dan’s stomach. Before Dan knows it, his shirt is soaking wet and discarded behind him, Phil just about in his lap. Dan shudders when one of Phil’s suckers latches squarely over his nipple, and Phil looks up with muted interest clouding his features.

By this point, all of Phil’s tentacles are touching Dan; trailing across his chest, his face, his hair – two are even around his ass, holding him almost entirely off the platform. Dan winces and squirms when one of Phil's tentacles brushes across his clothed cock. He’s definitely hard, _fuck,_ and Dan can only pray that Phil doesn’t know enough about human anatomy to know what’s happening.

His mind is screaming at him that this is  _wrong_ , this is beyond wrong. There probably aren't even laws written forbidding it yet, that's how wrong it is. Dan's brain screams for him to push Phil away, make him stop at any means possible then run fast and run far away from this place. 

“W-what are you doing?” Dan sputters when one of Phil’s tentacles brushes over his lips. It’s… somehow different from all of the others, though it muse be a recent change because Dan is sure he would have noticed it otherwise. It’s thicker, swollen-looking, and secreting an incredibly suspicious clear liquid from the tip.

“You asked how sex worked,” Phil says innocently, “so I'm showing you.”

“That’s not what I– _fuck_ ,” Dan groans when Phil lays a tentacle across his chest, attaching one sucker to each of Dan’s nipples. Fuck, he noticed how much Dan likes that.

"W-who taught you how to be such a cocky little shit,” Dan pants, his body going lax as his mind spins out of control`. Phil’s smile is blinding, all bright eyes and sharp teeth Dan suddenly, desperately wants to have embedded in every inch of his skin.

“This is my… well, I don’t know how to translate it, but in our language it’s called a–“ Phil makes an oddly melodic choking sound, and Dan has to fight back a laugh. “I guess you could call it my, what’s the word for it, cock, right? It’s my main tentacle. It looks and acts as a regular one the rest of the time, but it’s a little bit stronger. About eighty percent of us have them.” He brushes the tentacle over Dan’s lips, which are parted in wonder. Dan tries not to think about how the clear, milky fluid tastes like saltwater and semen and acid.

"So I'm technically a male. Females lay eggs, which any male of age in the pod can and will fertilize. Babies are raised in the community, regardless of who the father technically is. Each pod has one or two females, larger ones have more.” Dan tries to focus on Phil’s words, he really does, but the insistent pressure at all of his most sensitive places — Phil has already figured out Dan has a _spot_ right where his jaw meets his ear, _fuck_ — makes it extraordinarily difficult.

"The rest of the time-“ Dan’s eyes are closed, but he’s almost positive he can detect a note of amusement in Phil’s voice- “the males kind of just fuck around.” The tentacle — Phil’s cock, Dan reminds himself — pushes instantly at Dan’s lips, and he doesn’t even think before opening them, whimpering at the salty, acric tang that explodes over his tongue.

“Fuck,” Dan hears Phil swear, and he cracks his eyes open. Phil’s own are half-lidded and dark, focused entirely on where his blue-green tentacle is pistoning in and out of Dan’s willing lips. “Your mouth is so much warmer than any of my kind’s.”

‘C _old-blooded,’_ Dan notes even as his eyes start to slip shut, his lips closing around Phil’s tentacle as he starts to suck in earnest.

"How about you, Dan?” Phil asks, flicking his tentacle against Dan’s tongue. It feels like a very, very odd combination of sucking cock and making out. Dan shivers with the wrongness of it, but also with the thrill. This is wrong, this is terrible and bad and Dan should probably be disgusted with himself but it takes all he has not to swivel his hips and wantonly beg for more.

“How does sex work for you? I feel like it has something to do with this,” Phil notes, framing Dan’s cock through his sweatpants with two tentacles. Dan has barely jerked his head in a nod before Phil has yanked off his shoes with two tentacles and his sweatpants and boxers with two more, leaving Dan entirely naked. Dan shivers when his ass touches the cold metal of the platform, and again when Phil wraps a tentacle around his cock.

”It’s like a really small tentacle,” Phil says, fascinated. Dan almost chokes, and Phil withdraws the tentacle from his mouth.

"Never, _ever,_ say that again,” Dan says, bringing his hands up to grip at Phil’s biceps for stability. “What about kissing? Do you do that?”

Phil cocks his head.

“Kissing?”

“Like this,” Dan says, leaning in. He can feel his heart beat in his ears when Phil’s tentacles fly up to support him, holding him both in the air and against Phil’s chest as he softly connects their lips.

“This is new,” Phil says, his voice tinged with excitement. His lips and tongue are messy and uncoordinated, strangely cold against Dan’s own. He tastes like open water and a sea-salt breeze, and Dan can't stop himself from drowning in it.

“We don’t have– if you don’t want–” Dan says, pulling back even as every shred of instinct in his body is screaming for him to press forward, to take this creature’s mouth and make him _Dan’s_.

“But I want to,” Phil whines childishly. He leans in too quickly, their teeth clacking painfully. Dan pulls back and swears, bringing his hand up to feel at his lip. No blood, thank god.

“You aren’t very good at this,” Dan says, and Phil snorts.

“Teach me,” he says, his eyes shining with humour. “I learn quickly.”

Dan nods, taking Phil’s cheeks in his hands as he leans in. Phil waits patiently, allowing Dan to work his lips over Phil’s for a few uninterrupted moments before he starts, tentatively, to kiss back. Dan makes a wordless sound of encouragement against his lips and Phil opens his mouth for Dan’s tongue to slip past. Phil sucks at the muscle in his mouth, drawing a beautifully strangled noise from Dan. Phil’s tentacles are moving, always moving, stroking and holding and caressing every inch of Dan’s body. Eventually, one wraps around Dan’s cock and he almost chokes, bucking forward into Phil’s touch.

The texture of Phil’s tentacle, smooth and wet and just the slightest bit slimy has Dan rucking up, the rest of Phil’s appendages wrapping around his back, his hips, his thighs, holding him up and off the floor.

“Phil, Phil, _fuck_ ,” Dan gasps, arching his back as best as he can against his living restraints. Phil’s eyes are half-lidded and glassy, and he pushes his main tentacle into Dan’s mouth as soon as it leaves his own.

Dan sucks at the tentacle in his mouth, humming his appreciation for Phil’s other touches. Phil’s hands come forward to splay across Dan’s chest, his short, jagged nails scraping down his skin in the most delicious way.

Entirely by accident, one of the tentacles that are holding Dan’s thighs apart flickers across his hole. He convulses upwards and Phil pulls his tentacle out of Dan’s mouth, his eyes panicked.

“Dan? Are you okay? Did I do something–” he looks down, noticing how Dan’s hips jump and his cock leaks whenever he moves the tip of is tentacle a certain way between Dan’s thighs– “wrong?” Phil finishes quietly, his eyes searching Dan’s face.

Dan is positive he’s blushing like mad, but he forces himself to not look away.

“P-push harder Ph-Phil, oh _fuck_ –” Dan’s jaw drops on a silent scream when Phil obeys, pressing the tip of one tentacle into his hole. It’s been so long since Dan has done this – too long, what with his degree and work and now Phil’s case – but it’s so, so good, the stretch burning up his spine and making his breathing come heavier, a few watery whimpers leaking out from his parted lips.

“You’re so tight down here,” Phil whispers in awe, gently pressing his tentacle even farther in. Dan’ brow creases as the unfamiliar sensation. The tentacle is thicker than a finger and more dexterous than a cock, filling him up in just the right–

He meets Phil’s eyes and they must have the same idea at the exact same time, because suddenly the tentacle twisting inside of Dan is gone, replaced with the blunter, thicker press of Phil’s main tentacle at his entrance mere seconds later.

Phil’s main tentacle inside of him, thick and cool and wet is _perfect_ , and Dan’s eyes roll so far back in his skull that he swears he can see his own brain melting. He barely even registers that he’s screaming until the sound is muffled by one of Phil’s tentacles thrusting against his tongue.

Dan garbles something against the tentacle in his mouth and Phil pulls it out.

“C-crook your– press up and in farth– oh _god,_ oh yes, oh fuck, Phil, please–” Phil rubs the leaking head of his main tentacle against Dan’s prostate, relishing in the waves of clenching heat it sends through Dan. His tentacle presses deeper and more nimbly than anything Dan has ever felt before, and his vision whites out as he cums harder than he ever has in all of his twenty-five years of living.

Phil groans as Dan clenches impossibly tight around him, seeming to draw the tentacle even deeper into his body. He watches in fascination as Dan’s face contorts in white-hot pleasure, his hips rolling up and into the tight circle of one of Phil’s tentacles around his cock, riding out his high.

“Dan, Dan, please, may–” Phil whimpers, thrusting his main tentacle. Dan’s head drops back, boneless, and one of Phil’s tentacles flashes forward, wrapping around the back of Dan’s head and holding him up. 

“Yes, yes, fuck, you can–” Dan doesn’t even need to finish, Phil already moving inside of him. Each press of Phil’s leaking tentacle against his prostate makes Dan’s voice break and thighs shake, his body going entirely lax as he lets Phil use him.

It isn’t long before Phil stiffens, tightening every hold he had on Dan’s body as he comes inside of Dan.

Phil’s come is hot and sticky and there is so much of it, filling Dan past the brim. It leaks out when Phil pulls his tentacle out, slowly relaxing his hold on the rest of Dan’s body.

"Ph-Phil?” Dan croaks when he feels Phil lowering him into the saltwater tank.

“Shh, I’ve got you,” Phil rumbles, his hands smoothing over Dan’s arms as he slips into the water as well, holding Dan against his chest and keeping the both of them buoyant.

They stay like that for uncountable minutes, sometimes kissing but more often not, letting the soft, artificial waves rock them slowly side to side. Dan groans when he hears the fans start up. He was the one who set them to turn on at six thirty every morning.

“I have half an hour until someone is gonna be in here to check on you,” Dan mumbles, curling even farther into Phil’s chest. He’s shivering slightly, the water a few degrees too cold to be comfortable and Phil’s own cool body doing nothing to help.

“I don’t want you to go,” Phil mumbles, mouthing against the salty skin of Dan’s neck.

“Neither do I,” Dan pouts, not making any move to leave. Eventually though, he sighs and pulls back, pressing one last lingering kiss to Phil’s lips. Phil helps him out of the tank, watching with a fond expression as Dan struggles into his clothes, tossing his wet hair and sighing when it drips down his cheeks and soaks into his shirt. He descends the stairs slowly, carefully, and Phil follows, still in the tank.

“I’ll be back soon,” Dan promises, pressing his palm flat against the tank. Phil mirrors the action, flashing all of his teeth in a sharp grin. The bite marks scattered under Dan’s clothes throb.

“You better,” Phil hums, “or else I might lash out, bite Michael. Wouldn’t want to have that, would we?”

“You’re terrible,” Dan reprimands, but his voice is too breathy to be anything but fond.

“I’ve learned from the best,” Phil responds, his eyes crinkling with the force of his smile.

“I’ll be back,” Dan says again, mostly because he doesn’t know what else to say.

“Im not going anywhere,” Phil whispers. Dan, as he stumbles out of the room on shaking legs, gets the feeling Phil isn’t just referring to the tank.


	3. Chapter 3

_You cannot blame the sea if you suffer shipwreck for a second time._

_\- Latin proverb_

 

Dan stumbles back to his room on shaking legs, making probably too much noise as he tries to get into the shower. He mechanically washes the salt out of his hair and skin, shivering slightly against the burning spray when his fingers brush over the bit marks and banded-red bruises Phil’s tentacles left on his skin. _Fuck._ Phil’s _tentacles._ Dan’s probably broken all kinds of laws, most of which haven’t even been _written_ yet. He’s screwed six ways from Sunday if this gets out.

He exits the shower, not before turning the spray on cold for a few torturous seconds, just to wake himself up. He stumbles out of the bathroom, pulling on jeans and a turtleneck sweater. No one would have any reason to be suspicious, he assumes – it’s not like he can bring anyone back to his room at the facility, or even leave for a night.

It’s – Dan checks his watch – seven forty-six when Dan stumbles into the lab, clutching his coffee mug in one hand and pushing up his glasses with the other. He yawns, popping his back as he stretches.

Michael is already in the tank, the bubbles rising from his mouthpiece distorted by the water and the glass. Phil hangs out in the bottom corner of his tank, glowering at Michael as he tries to get closer. He seems to be protecting something from the diver, and Dan squints at the fuzzy yellow blob resting on the bottom of the tank. With a start, he realizes it’s his legal pad, the one he had been writing all of his notes on last night.

“How did he even get that?” Marissa, the lead researcher, asks with a shake of her head.

“Why don’t you ask him?” Dan mumbles into his coffee, filtering the grounds through his teeth as he downs the entire cup in two gulps. Marissa just stares at him, and Dan laughs weakly.

“It was a joke, ma’am.”

“Right.” Marissa still eyes him warily, but she doesn’t say anything more.

“What are we looking at today?” Dan asks. Marissa points to the metal platform ( _where you were fucked last night,_ Dan’s brain helpfully supplies him with) where a large black bag resides.

“We’re looking at his blood. Pressure, composition, all of it. We need a sample too, but as usual, it won’t let Michael anywhere near it.” _He,_ Dan’s brain screams at her. _He has a name, he’s not some animal_. 

But, Darealizeses with a start, that’s all anyone else sees Phil as: an animal. Dan’s stomach drops out at the bottom, and he almost drops his coffee mug. _Oh god._ Can he get jailed on bestiality charges? Would the court let Phil testify for him?

Marissa's voice brings Dan back to reality. “So suit up, Howell. And try not to fall asleep underwater, I’d hate to have to leave you in there with it.” Dan almost laughs, but he bites his tongue and scurries off to do as instructed. He reemerges minutes later with his skinsuit on and begins climbing the metal stairs.

He has an overwhelming sense of deja vu as he slips into the water, his insulated suit keeping him warm, this time. He settles his goggles on over his glasses, taking a breath and diving down to Michael. Michael nods at him, handing off the mouthpiece. Dan tries not to notice Phil’s dark look as he sucks down oxygen, clamping the rubber between his teeth to free up his hands.

Dealing with a blood pressure cuff and syringes underwater is absolute hell. Everything is rocking and moving and Dan is thirty seconds away from throwing it all down and stomping his foot in frustration. Phil offers him a sympathetic look, curling himself around Dan’s body. Dan goes absolutely still.

“What the hell is it doing?” Leonard asks. Marissa's nose is all but pressed up against the glass as she watches. Slowly, carefully, Dan shrugs. He takes the tube out of his mouth for one second, opening his mouth to speak.

“I really wish that was my cock instead of some stupid oxygen tube,” Phil purrs quietly, and Dan’s words die on his tongue. He chokes a little bit, shoving the tube back into his mouth before he inhales water and drowns himself. Phil’s smirk is debilitating, and Dan is suddenly panting for an entirely different reason than lack of air. Phil curiously swirls upwards. Dan follows a good couple of feet behind him.

Dan swears he can hear Marissa’s brain start working as soon as Phil pops his head out of the water. Dan follows shortly behind, his mind reeling. He’s trying to remember how to act like a startled researcher instead of someone who had seen it all and then some.

“Dan!” Amaris calls, racing up the metal stairs with Marissa in hot pursuit. “Is he breathing? Does he have lungs?”

Dan swims ever closer, carefully reaching out. Phil seems to be enthralled with the metal stethoscope he pulls out of the bag, but Dan knows better.

“Yeah,” he says, as quietly as he can manage. “He is, I’m pretty sure. Chest is moving just like a human’s.”

“What else in in his torso?” Marissa asks herself, scribbling away. “if only I could do a dissection–”

“No!” Dan yells, startling everyone in the room. Phil looks at him, then up at Marissa, baring his teeth before diving down, spinning underwater and coming up behind Dan, putting him between Phil and the researcher.

“I m-mean no,” Dan sputters, shaking his wet hair out of his eyes as he treads water. “He’s, um, there’s so much more we don’t know, a-and– we can’t just kill him in the name of science!”

Marissa’s eyes narrow, and Dan rushes to cover himself.

“Look, okay, now that we know he can breathe above water, we can take him for an x-ray? We still have so much to learn, and we can’t learn it if he’s dead.”

“You’re attached,” Marissa accuses.

“To a living fairytale. Who wouldn’t be?” Dan shoots back. Marissa shrugs.

“I see your point, Dan. I can call and ask for x-ray equipment to be brought down, but we likely won’t have it ‘till the end of the week. Can we get that blood sample now?”

Dan rolls his eyes but dives down to the bottom of the tank, picking up the syringe from where he dropped it.

Phil stays remarkably still as Dan fumbles with the needle tip, missing Phil’s vein twice before hitting it, watching as dark, blue blood seeps into the plastic container. Phil’s tentacles wrap around Dan’s ankles and he jumps, almost pulling the needle out of Phil’s arm.

“Why is he this comfortable with you?” Marissa asks, and Dan extracts the needle from Phil’s arm. He can’t feel how cool and soft he knows Phil's tentacles are, he can only feel the light pressure of them through his wetsuit.

“I have no idea,” Dan lies, swimming over to the platform and hoisting himself up on it, handing over the blood sample.

“Excellent,” Marissa hums. “We're going to start on this now, and I want you to perform that intelligence test we talked about a couple of days ago. Basic recognition and memorization. Let’s see what this fairytale can do.”

‘ _Me_ ,’ Dan thought, but he keeps his mouth shut. “Where’s Michael?” he asks instead.

“There’s talk about taking him off the team since you’re the only one Phil seems to be able to stand.” Marissa and Amaris descend the stairs. “He’s in a meeting until one about it.” The industrial door closes with a beep and a thump behind them. Dan halfheartedly tunes in to Leonard and Cairo's conversation about sand and rock shipments until their words are obscured by distance and doors. He sighs, pushing his goggles onto his forehead and rubs at his eyes, yawning.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Phil snickers, propping his head on his forearms. Dan glares at him.

“Fuck off,” he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. “ _Someone_  kept me up all night.”

“What a bastard,” Phil murmurs, entirely shameless. “Whoever did that definitely deserves a good–”

“Cocksucking,” Dan finishes for him, standing and stripping out of his wetsuit. He wrestles the elasticky fabric down off his shoulders, down his hips and eventually off his feet, tossing it behind him. He’s not wearing anything underneath.

He knows that only he, Marissa and Michael have keys to the tank room itself, and with Michael, in a meeting and Marissa busy with the blood sample they have at least an hour to themselves. That, and Dan’s just fucking desperate for Phil’s hands on him. Tentacles. Whatever.

He dives into the tank, letting Phil’s tentacles wrap around him and drag him back up to the surface.

“I mean,” Phil says slowly, “that works too.”

“Good.” Dan takes Phil’s cheeks in his hands, slamming their lips together with enough force to create a small wave, which ripples out until it hits the wall of the tank before disappearing.

“How do you want me?” Phil asks, curling around Dan with half a dozen different appendages.

“Now,” is Dan’s only response. Phil just laughs, stroking every inch of Dan’s skin at once as he kisses back, his propelling tentacles and natural buoyancy supporting the both of them

“I could kill you right now,” Phil muses, and Dan’s heart almost stops. He’s hard, his cock rutting into the muscular juncture where to of Phil’s tentacles diverge.

“My teeth are made to crush and chew fish bones and scales. Your throat would be like seaweed to me.” Phil’s voice isn’t mean. If anything he sounds disconnected, as if he’s noticing all of this from an entirely objective standpoint. Dan just leans in to mouth at the pale skin of his throat, his tongue tracing slits in the skin and realising they must be Phil’s gills. He just moves up, tonguing at Phil’s jaw instead.

“I have five times the number of limbs as you do,” Phil continues. Dan makes a wordless sound of protest against his skin, thrusting his hips forward. The slide of his cock against membrane is very, very slick, but miles better than nothing.

“I could choke–” one of Phil’s tentacles moves from its spot around Dan’s waist, wrapping around his throat instead– “choke you out, drag you underwater. You wouldn’t even be able to get a hit in, I could just–” again, his limbs follow his words, one fastening around each of Dan’s own limbs, forcing them immobile– “drown you, no problem.”

Dan’s eyes are half lidded and hot, his lashes sparkling from the water.

“Or you could fuck me,” he rasps, and he can feel the tentacle wrapped around his throat pulse. So, that one must be Phil’s main tentacle.

“Have a fucking sense of self-preservation,” Phil snarls, but Dan ignores him, dropping his jaw and lolling his tongue out, ready and waiting. Phil shoves his main tentacle between Dan’s lips at the same moment he wraps one hand around Dan’s cock and the other pinches one of Dan’s nipples. Dan’s heart drops and ears pop, singing with the simultaneous sensation.

“Fuhhkuhh hehh fuhh fuhh mehh” Dan garbles around Phil’s main tentacle. Phil seems to get the drift, removing his tentacle from Dan’s mouth before dipping it underwater, pressing against Dan’s still-loose entrance.

“You remember me here,” Phil notes with a shit-eating grin, and Dan would roll his eyes if they weren’t already rolled so far back in his skull he’s sure nothing but the whites are showing.

“ _Fuck,_  yes, I do,” he gasps, bucking his hips forwards into the tight ring of Phil’s fingers before pressing back onto his main tentacle. “Now fuck me so I never forget it.”

“Cheeky,” Phil says with a grin, thrusting inside. Dan’s jaw drops and he almost screams with it, but one of Phil’s other tentacles in his mouth serves as a pretty effective gag. Phil drags Dan’s arms behind his back, holding both of his wrists in one tentacle and freeing up another one to rub at Dan’s cock. He knows Dan much prefers the feeling of his tentacles more than his hands, really, and Phil is more than happy to oblige him. They’re more sensitive than his hands, anyways, so it’s not like it’s a chore for him to do so.

Phil’s main tentacle is pressing so, so good and so, so deep, finding Dan’s prostate immediately and flicking across it on every thrust in. It’s so much better, so much more mind-blowing, than Dan remembers it being. He wishes he could use his hands, could drag Phil in for a kiss, could run his fingers over that perfect body, but he also loves being restrained like this, being entirely at the creature’s mercy. It’s intoxicating, really.

“Anoffehhh” Dan chokes out, and Phil freezes.

“R-really?” he asks, his voice tinged with trepidation even as he sneaks the tentacle that was rubbing at – well, attaching and detaching and reattaching the suckers to, which in Dan’s mind was even better – Dan’s cock under the water to flicker around Dan’s stretched hole.

“Puhleah,” Dan groans, and Phil tentatively obliges him.

The stretch burns, all the way up to Dan’s shoulders and down to his toes, but it also sends swirling heat straight to his cock. A small, milk-white cloud floats through the water, and Dan has to actively resist the urge to laugh.

Both tentacles working in tandem easily bring Dan to the edge faster than anything has before. He cums not even five minutes later, sinking his teeth into the tentacle in his mouth as his cock empties into the cool water. Phil hisses and pulls it out, rubbing it with one hand. A red ring of bite marks is beginning to show up on the blue-green skin.

“No,” Dan gasps out when Phil goes to remove his tentacles from Dan’s hole. “N-no. Want you to– to–” Phil thrusts his main tentacle right into Dan’s prostate, earning himself a scream of absolute ecstasy.

“Fuck,” Phil swears, pressing his main tentacle back in and shuddering as Dan clenches down particularly hard. “Fuck Dan, it’s so good, you feel s-so–”

“Cum in my mouth,” Dan says, begs, even. Phil’s main tentacle throbs. “W-wanna taste you, f-fuck, please, cum in my mouth, let me taste–” Phil quickly and easily switches his main tentacle for the one that was in Dan’s mouth, twisting the two in his hole and making Dan’s entire body shake. His lips are puffed red and spit-slick, perfect and inviting as Phil slides his main tentacle between them.

Phil doesn’t last long, Dan’s eager moans and hot, tight mouth and clenching heat around his other tentacles sending him over the edge. He comes onto Dan’s tongue in long, sticky pulses, filling his mouth until his cheeks swell and his eyes water with how fast he tries to swallow it down.

“Fuck,” Dan whimpers, his cock twitching as a mixture of cum and drool dripped down his chin. “Fuck, Phil, kiss me, please make– make me cum again, of _god–”_ Phil makes a predatory noise, low in his throat, descending on Dan’s lips with almost feverish intensity. He works his tentacles inside of Dan incessantly, fucking him hard and rough and fast, swallowing every moan, cry and keen he makes. 

Dan’s pretty sure he blacks out for a few seconds as he cums for the second time, every muscle in his body straining against Phil’s ungiving appendages.

When he comes to, Dan is pressed to Phil’s chest, arms and tentacles wrapped around him, and Phil’s voice in his ear, whispering soothing words in a language Dan doesn’t recognise.

“Fuck,” he says, weakly.

“Fuck,” Phil agrees.

With the soft, cool water lapping at the nape of his neck, Dan allows himself to relax. He knows he’s going to have to get up and get dressed and fake results for an IQ test, but for now, he lets himself have this, have Phil. He tries to ignore the clenching in his stomach and chest when he thinks about how long he’ll be able to have it.

Almost as if he can sense Dan’s turbulent thoughts, Phil holds him tighter, his soothing words becoming more insistent.

And, for the first time in nearly six years, Dan lets himself relax.

***

Michael is torn between wanting to cry and to break shit. He stares down and the lacquered wood of the table in front of him, then up at the three committee members. The committee president (Henry, Michael thinks his name is) looks honestly sorry for what he's saying. It helps, but it doesn't quite extinguish the hurt that flares up in Michael's chest. He clenches his fists under the table, blinking back tears.

"I'm sorry, Michael, truly," Henry says. Michael nods, hoping the movement of his head will help loosen up his ever-tightening throat.

"I understand," he says, his voice staying steady even as his lower lip quivers. "Thank you so much for the opportunity."  _And fuck you, Howell, for taking it away,_ he adds in his head, though no one needs to know that.

Henry smiles sympathetically. Michael wants to punch it off of him. The person sitting to Henry's left hands him an unmarked file folder, and Henry nods his thanks, drawing four double-sided pages out of it. Michael doesn't even need to look to know the words "confidential" and "capital punishment" occupy the thin lines of text somewhere.

"Please sign here," Henry says, indicating a dotted line with a small 'x.' All four men sitting around the table pretend to not notice how much Michael's hand shakes as he signs his name.

"Thank you, sirs," Michael says, his throat catching on the words. "Thank you for the opportunity. Thank you–" He snaps his jaw shut, looking down.

The wind caresses his cheeks, blowing his tears away as he shakes his head, slowly, ever so slowly, picking his way back across the quad to the tank room. He needs to clear out by morning, and he has a few choice words for a certain brown-haired researcher.

***

Dan is just getting dressed again when Michael steps into the room.

"Hey," Dan says softly, tugging his sweater down over his hips. "How did it go?"

Michael doesn't respond, just presses one hand to Phil's tank and closes his eyes.

"I could get killed if I tell anyone about this, you know." Dan startles, a sound of confusion slipping past his lips. Michael turns to look over his shoulder at the researcher. His shoulders flex.

"The paperwork they made me sign," he clarifies. "They'll probably call it a resignation. The best opportunity of my career, the opportunity to finally advance science and–" he makes a crashing sound with his mouth, letting his hand drop from the tank. "It's all over. Thanks to you." His voice betrays nothing of what he feels, but his narrowed eyes could melt steel. Dan puts his hands up and backs up half a step. Michael takes a step forward.

“Why does he like you more, Dan, huh? Why are you taking the best opportunity I’ve ever had away from me?” Dan can’t meet Michael’s eyes.

“Ask him yourself, he says quietly. Michael snorts.

“Don’t play that bullshit with me, Dan, I’m not gonna ask the goddamn animal–”

“I’m not fucking stupid,” Phil bites out, his teeth bared and his hands hooked like claws. Michael freezes, staring open-mouthed at the creature. Dan is on the verge of tears.

"H-how–"

"Three days ago. Your language isn't that hard to understand. Like many things you do, it's rather over-simplified." Phil swims up to the top of the tank, bracing his arms against the edge of it and yelling down. He's farther away, but Michael can still see the look of pure, serious rage he sports. His knees tremble.

"Dan is mine," Phil snarls. "I want him. He is  _mine._ You can't have him or my time."

“Why are you telling me this?” Michael grits out. Phil’s smile is sharp and mean, sharp enough to cut even from fifty feet away.

“Because no one will ever believe you. And anyways. Capital punishment, was it not?”

Michael blinks, letting his fists fall loose at his sides.He spins around jabbing his finger in Dan's face and hissing, "Enjoy your pet, Dan." He tries to come up with something, anything else to say, but all he can think of is pure, blind rage.

Dan flinches at the low, threatening growl Michael lets out. He yanks his keycard lanyard out of his pocket, hurling it at Dan's chest before spinning on his heel and stalking out of the room. Dan catches the lanyard on instinct, his heart pounding in his ears as he watches Michael go. He stands there, frozen, until Leonard and Cairo get back.

"What's up with Michael?" Cairo asks. "He looked pissed coming down the hall."

Dan stares at the keycard in his hands, turning it over and running his thumb over the ID photo of Michael smiling hugely.

"His skills have been... requisitioned," he finally says, tucking the lanyard into his pocket beside his own. Guilt claws its way up his throat, settling behind his eyes in the form of hot, sticky tears. Cairo looks at Leonard and he shrugs, stroking his mustache thoughtfully. They both quietly slip out of the room, leaving Dan standing, alone, with his eyes fixed on a stain on the floor. Phil swirls in his tank, fierce, possessive instinct making his hands twitch at his sides. He can't bring himself to look up when Dan starts crying.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whooooo buddy. i'm sorry this took so long, hopefully things won't be this bad in the future! and i now have the rest of this fic planned out, so like sorry in advance for that (not really)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *gasps* two updates in one day....??? (lmao please don't start expecting this i just had a day off)
> 
> aka this is where i left off on tumblr, everything from here on out is gonna be all-new. hope y'all enjoy, and feedback fills my broken heart <3

_[One] cannot discover new oceans unless [they] have the courage to lose sight of the shore._

_-Andre Gide_

 

Dan waits in the lobby with Michael's keycard. Michael doesn't come. Later that night, Dan downloads Instagram and makes an account just to follow Michael's underwater photography account. He counts it as a small win when he doesn't wake up blocked.

***

“What’s up with the blood?” Dan asks, slouching into a spinning chair and lazily twirling himself around in half circles with one foot as he nurses a rapidly cooling cup of coffee.

“It’s almost identical to octopus blood,” Amaris says, still bent over the microscope. She tucks the edges of her hijab out of the way, muttering something about bacteria and cultures that Dan doesn't quite catch.

“Ninety percent hemocyanin, ten percent haemoglobin,” Marissa says, more to herself than to Dan, marking something on the laptop beside her. “I’ve never seen a combination like this. You don’t understand just how much I want to do an autopsy on him…” She trails off, sneaking a glance at Dan’s unimpressed glare.

“I’m not going to,” She reassures, sitting back and taking the slide from the microscope, carefully packing it away. “But I do want more samples of skin, from both the human and octopus halves of him.” Dan sighs, scrubbing his face with his hands. He really doesn’t want to cause Phil more pain than necessary, but he knows he’s going to be the one asked to collect the samples.

“I still don’t understand why he likes you so much, though,” Marissa continues, pushing her glasses up on top of her head and spinning around to face Dan. “You aren’t that different from Michael. Same height, though you’re a little bit smaller. You aren’t even the one who came into contact with him first, so it can’t be that he imprinted on you somehow.”

Dan almost makes the “why don’t you ask him yourself,” joke, before remembering that he yesterday and anything more would just be suspicious. instead, he changes the topic.

“Well, he does have remarkable intelligence, from what I was able to run last night. Pattern recognition, basic problem solving, the like. He obviously can recognize people on sight, I’d like to test if he can recognize them by the sound of their voice alone.”

“I have a number of cognitive tests I’d like to run, now that we have basic biology mostly down,” Marissa says, tapping away at her laptop. “We have a tour of grant funders coming by this afternoon since they want to see what we know. It’s been two weeks, they want to know if their money is going towards figuring out an evolutionary miracle or some kind of mad scientist gone off the deep end.” She stands and stretches. Dan mirrors her, yawning deeply. Weeks of hard work and midnight checks have left him tired to his core.

"Get some sleep," Amaris says, peering up at him from the rim per her microscope. She ducks back down to fiddle with some settings when Dan looks over at her.

"What?" she asks when she notices Dan's expression. "You're working yourself to the bone, Dan. We're a team. You can ask for help if you need it, you know."

Dan snorts and rubs his eyes. "Yeah, I know," he says, leaning his elbows on his knees. "But I like it, you know? Midnight shifts and all."

"I like Jell-o but it's still not good for me to eat it every meal of the day," Amaris points out. She pulls off her latex gloves and crosses her arms over her chest.

"You're young, Dan, and you think you can do it all, but you're only one person, okay?" Dan opens his mouth to object but Amaris hold up a hand, silencing him before he even starts. So quietly Dan barely notices, Marissa peels off her own gloves and stands to leave, giving them some space.

"I'm twenty-five, not sixteen."

"The fact that you need to argue it proves my point." Amaris stares him down. Dan refuses to look away, even as his cheeks heat up.

"I'm sorry that I'm a part of something I love, okay? I'm sorry that I want to learn all I can in the time we have Phil, which might not be for much longer."

"Don't get sharp with me," Amaris warns. "I'm just looking out for you, okay, since it seems like you aren't too keen on doing it yourself."

Dan takes a sharp breath. He hadn't thought of it like that. But now that he thinks about it, he really only had four or five hours of sleep a night on the better days, his every waking hour consumed with working. His eyes droop and he mentally kicks himself.

"Y-you're right, Amaris. I'm sorry," Dan admits, his voice quiet. Amaris offers him a smile.

"Don't be sorry. Just do something about it. Phil won't disappear if you let one of us take a night shift, you know."

Dan runs his hands through his hair and his lips pull up into a tired smile. He nods once and stands to leave.

“Oh, and Dan?” Amaris calls after him. She points to a bruise on Dan’s hip, from where his shirt rucked up. “Be more careful going down those stairs, okay? I don’t want you to fall again and hurt yourself even worse.” Dan blushes and nods, scuttling out of the room before Amaris can notice the fact that the bruise is actually in the shape of a hand.

***

Phil stirs when Dan enters the room, slowly unfurling his tentacles from where they were wrapped around his body. He blinks, his lips pulling back into a snarl before he realizes it’s only Dan and his lips form into a smile.

“Hey,” Dan says softly, climbing the stairs. He sits on the top of the metal platform and folds himself down into a sitting position, trailing one hand in the water.

“’Ello, love,” Phil says in a forced Cockney accent, and Dan bursts out laughing.

“What ever am I going to do with you?”

“Mmm.” Phil folds his arms on the platform, resting his chin on his wrists and looking up at Dan with huge, doe eyes. “Head rubs?”

Dan laughs and drops his hand onto Phil’s head, carding wet hair out of his eyes. He scratches his fingertips across Phil’s skull, gently brushing the fins that protrude from where Phil’s ears should be. They’re scaly to the touch, but oddly soft, too.

“We have a tour coming by this afternoon,” Dan says. “Grant managers and other types with sticks up their asses.” His voice is low, out of proximity and comfort more than the fear of being overheard. His vision blurs slightly and he blinks, struggling to keep his eyes open. “So I want you to be on your best behavior, mister.”

“Yes sir,” Phil says with a sloppy grin. “Would you like me and my clownfish buddies to choreograph a little song and a dance, too? I’m thinking Rhianna, but I’m open to other ideas.”

“You’re actually impossible,” Dan reprimands, his voice too breathy to be anything but fond. The corners of Phil’s eyes crinkle when he grins, his blue-tinged skin flashing pink for a moment. Dan remembers what Marissa said about his blood being ninety percent copper and ten percent iron. He wonders what that has to do with anything.

“Mm, you love it.” Phil’s grin is wide and bright, his pearl-white teeth blinding. His slitted blue eyes blink, then dilate. If Dan ignores his ears, Phil almost looks like a human. Dan wonders what would be different if Phil had been a human. Would they have met? Fallen in love? Gone on dates to the beach, hands clasped tightly as the salty waves tickled their ankles, filling each of them with a yearning neither of them could name? Dan thinks he could have loved Phil if he had been a human. Dan blinks again and focuses hard on Phil’s face. Everything falls away except for those ocean-blue eyes, that pale pink smile. Then two of Phil’s tentacles creep up onto the platform beside him and the illusion shatters.

“Go to sleep, Dan,” Phil reprimands softly. “You look like you’re about to pass out on me. And while I’m not exactly opposed to performing mouth-to-mouth on you, you really don’t need just a dramatic excuse to ask for a kiss.”

Dan nods tiredly, pressing the heels of his hands to his eyes and not even bothering to process Phil’s words.

“Sleep sounds good,” he mumbles, not sure if he’s talking to Phil or to himself.

“Go,” Phil insists, prodding at Dan’s knee with two fingers. “I’ll see you this afternoon. Make sure you brush your hair before the meeting and put on a shirt that isn’t stained.”

“Alright _mummy_ ,” Dan bites, no real venom behind his words. Phil’s eyebrows knit in confusion.

“Dan, I’m male. If anything, I would be your daddy.”

Dan, already halfway to standing, nearly topples into the tank.

“Dan?” Phil asks, his hands and tentacles coming up to help steady Dan. Dan takes a few deep breaths, willing himself not to pop a boner. “Dan, are you okay?”

“Just peachy,” Dan says, wincing when the words come out a lot breathier than he wants them to. “Sorry, just – wow, you took me by surprise there.”

Phil wrinkles his nose. “I’m sorry, was it the daddy comment? I just wasn’t sure why you were referring to me as your mother.”

Dan waves his hand. Sometimes, he forgets Phil is technically classified as an alien and doesn’t know all of the modern English slang.

“It’s something you say to a friend or whoever who’s being motherly. Making sure you eat, keep track of details, look presentable, whatever.” He rubs the back of his neck. He really shouldn’t be feeling embarrassed, he supposed, considering he has had at least four of Phil’s ten limbs in one of his orifices at some point, and will likely work his way through all ten in the near future. Yet Dan can’t stop the blush that blooms across his cheeks as he bites his lip and says, “whereas daddy is kind of a, you know, a sex thing.” He coughs and turns away.

Phil’s eyes widen, then slit, and his grin is sharp and dangerous.

“I’ll make you a deal,” he says softly, and Dan’s interest and cock perk up.

“If you go and get sleep right now until whenever the tour comes by, I’ll behave during it. Afterwards, later, maybe–” he draws himself up onto the platform, extending his arms and pushing himself up until he’s nearly eye-to-eye with Dan– “you can tell me more about this ‘sort of a sex thing,’ sound good?”

“Y-yeah,” Dan breathes, cursing himself for how much his voice wavers on just one syllable. “O-okay.”

He almost loses his footing as he descends the metal steps on shaking legs. Amaris' words echo in his head and the bruise on his hip throbs in sympathy. Dan laughs to himself, drunk off lack of sleep more than anything, and stumbles back into his room, collapsing on his bed and immediately falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.

***

Marissa is explaining their research when Dan slides into the tank room, He smoothes down his hair at a sharp look from Phil, chewing his lip nervously. He’s never liked the corporate types, the stuffy, rich, old people whose asses he’s had to kiss in order to fund a scientific breakthrough. Phil brightens up as soon as Dan steps through the door, adventuring out from the far corner of the circular tank, pressing his fingertips to the glass like a child. Dan can see at least three of the half dozen men visibly stiffen, and he smiles.

“To the best, we can determine,” Marissa continues, “Phil is the male of his species. Based on his similarities to an octopus we assume the females have egg sacs, and we haven’t found one on him. However, we don’t actually know enough about their reproductive systems to be sure.

“Phil is obviously a mature member of his species, based on the speed of his cell creation and regeneration. If he were still growing, that figure would be much higher.”

_How old actually are you?_  Dan wonders, looking at Phil. Phil is pretending to have lost interest in the tour group, but he remains to hover near Dan, and Dan can see his ear fins twitch when one of the suited men coughs.

“The biological composition is nothing I have ever seen before.” Marissa mindlessly brushes back a few flyaway hairs. “His blood is perfectly suited to the cooler temperatures a hundred feet underwater, but he could likely survive at sea level for quite a long time, if not forever. He would be uncomfortable, but he could do it.

“A perfect symbiosis like this…” Marissa trails off, shaking her head. “We’ve never seen anything like it. It can’t possibly have been created by anything other than natural evolution.

“He’s smart. We don’t know the extent of his intelligence, but we know it’s there. Pattern and facial recognition at the least. We’re going to be running a lot more tests on it, as well as the extent of his survivability.”

“Survivability?” Dan almost cringes when the grant manager speaks.

“We’re going to be putting him under different stresses and seeing how his body reacts,” Marissa explains, and Dan’s heart crawls into his throat.

“No–” He manages to bite back the slew of curses and protests, but only barely. He knows Phil heard him, but he doesn’t appear to be affected by the news, still mindlessly attaching and detaching his suckers from the aquarium glass. He meets Dan’s eyes, and Dan wipes them furiously. He’ll have words with Marissa later, right now they need to impress the donors.

“And what do you plan to do afterward?” one of the donors asks, seemingly unfazed by Dan’s little outburst.

Marissa blinks. “What do you mean?”

“After you do your–” the man gestures vaguely– “tests. Then what?” Marissa blinks again, and Dan can see her fists clench almost imperceptibly before they relax at her sides.

“We keep learning,” Marissa says. “Rest assured, we will take every safety precaution possible–”

“What about the rest of them?” another donor asks.

“The rest of what?”

“Them.” the man gestures at Phil. “The species.”

“As of now–” Dan can see how hard it is for Marissa to keep her cool, but she manages– “we want to learn as much as possible about the creature before we even consider the possibility of trying to find more of them–”

“All I’m saying,” the man says, walking up to the glass and peering closely at Phil. Phil bares his teeth and backs away, his ear fins twitching. Dan steps up to the glass and Phil relaxes, turning a brilliant smile on the young scientist.

“All I’m saying, is they would make an amazing exhibition,” the man finishes, and Dan has to literally bite his tongue to refrain from making a Jurrasic Park reference.

The group moves to the side to confer amongst themselves, and Dan sighs, laying a palm flat against the glass. Phil mirrors the action and grins hugely. Dan sneaks a look to his left, where Marissa is sighing fondly.

“He’s like a goddamn dog,” she mutters, before turning away. “Endearing, yet for the life of me I can’t figure out why.” Dan just hides a smile behind his hand and schools his face into a mask of passive disinterest when the group breaks and walks back over to the edge of the tank. Cairo mutters something into Marissa's ear, and she nods. Leonard steps in, the three of them falling into hushed conversation while Dan strokes his fingers over the tank.

“We have agreed," one of the managers says, straightening his tie, "to fully fund the upkeep and maintenance of this lab for the next six months.” Dan does his best to smother his cheer, but he’s positive a squeak leaks out regardless.

“Thank you so much, sirs,” Marissa says, her eyes sparkling as she shakes each and every one of their hands. “You won’t regret this!”

***

“Fucking hell I’m glad that’s over and done with,” Dan groans, rubbing his eyes. “There’s only so much ass-kissing I can do before everything starts to taste like genital herpes and poo.”

Marissa reaches over and cuffs Dan on the back of the head. It’s a motherly gesture, one that she has done to the boy many times before. Both of the scientists jump at a sudden banging sound that comes from the tank.

When Dan looks over, the first thing he notices are Phil’s eyes. They’re half-lidded and slitted, focused over Dan’s shoulder with murderous accuracy. Marissa looks startled out of her wits, her eyes flicking frantically from Phil’s predatory eyes to his clenched fists to the mysterious appearance of hooked claws extending from the center of his suckers.

Marissa throws up her hands as Dan rushes towards the tank, stroking one palm over the glass and mumbling soothing nonsense.

“Shh, it’s okay, she’s not going to hurt me, okay? It’s okay, she didn’t mean anything by it. It’s all okay, it’s all okay…”

“What in the fuck–” Marissa starts to ask, but Phil hisses and she shuts right up. Dan keeps mumbling reassuring nothings as he climbs the stairs, taking them two, three at a time and falling to his knees on the platform, letting Phil’s tentacles wrap around his wrists, the suckers pulsing in a way Dan knows will leave light red marks for the next day or so. 

Phil’s face is distorted by the water when he looks up, but Dan still sees the flash in his eyes.

_Mine,_  Phil mouths, slowly releasing Dan’s arms from his hold and retreating to the bottom of the tank. He buries his head in his arms, his body swaying gently on the artificial waves as three tentacles stick to the floor keep him anchored in place.

Dan descends the stairs slowly, trying and failing to catch Phil’s eye. He takes Marissa out of the room, indicating for her to keep silent. She does, but she doesn’t seem to like it, waiting for the second the doors slide shut before she goes off.

“What the hell was that?” she seethes. Dan shakes his head, holding his hands out in a placating gesture.

“Have you ever had a dog?” he asks. Marissa blinks.

“No.”

“Well, I had a dog as a kid, growing up, a little twenty-pound mixed mutt named Lucy. And she was absolutely devoted to my little brother. No one could go into my brother’s room without going through the dog. No one could even touch my brother without that dog growling. She was practically attached to his heels. And then, one day, when he was stumbling home at three a.m. piss-drunk, that goddamn dog saved my brother from being raped in the alleyway next to our apartment by walking up half the neighbourhood with her barking.” He scrubs his hands over his face.

“It’s natural for pack animals to get territorial. I’m assuming, then, that octanthroids usually live in pods, likely small, close-knit ones judging by the level of possessiveness Phil is showing over me. They’re likely exclusive, but probably not family based, and likely can interact with one another in some sort of neutral manner at least some of the time.”

Marissa just shook her head. “They told me I was getting a marine biologist, they said nothing about a behaviourist.”

 Dan shrugs. “We were allowed a couple of electives each semester while I was getting my bachelor’s.”

“Alright.” Marissa claps Dan on the shoulder. “I’m going to go and see what happens when I expose his blood to bacteria and viruses, I’ll be in the lab if you need me, but do your best to not need me.”

Dan nods. “I’m going to see if Phil’s up for some cognitive tests.”

“If he’s not, can you try and see what the hell those claw things were?” Marissa asks. “I’ve never seen anything like them…”

“Will do.” Dan waves, sliding his key card to let himself back into the tank room as Marissa walks off in the direction of the lab, most likely already plotting which extreme pathogens she would be infecting Phil’s blood with. Dan is just glad it’s no longer in Phil’s body.

“Hey,” he says softly, locking the door after it closes behind him. Phil’s ear fins perk up, but other than that he remains still.

Dan sheds his shirt and shoes as he climbs the stairs, mostly just to keep them dry. He sheds his pants as soon as he’s at the top, tossing them back down to land with a muffled _plop_  on the concrete floor. The metal is cool under his bare feet, and he shivers.

“What happened earlier?” he asks, sitting on the edge of the platform and trailing one bare foot in the surface of the water. Phil slowly floats up to him, relying on the buoyancy of his body rather than any actual effort to reach the surface.

“She looked like she was hurting you,” Phil mumbles, “And I don’t like it when other people hurt my family.” The scientific part of Dan’s brain congratulates himself that he had guessed right about octanthroid pods being close-knit but not biologically familial, while the rest of his brain is sent reeling.

_Family._  Dan thinks of his mother back in Wokingham, his brother at university in York, his father whom he never knew.

_Family._  He thinks of his dog, little Lucy, of her last days before they put her down. He thinks if his first serious girlfriend, and all of the conversations in which they planned out a beautiful future with a marriage and a house and three kids, Zachary, Zöe, and Zayn.

“Family,” Dan says, his voice soft with awe and wonder as he looks at Phil, whose eyes contain miles of unexplored oceans, riptides and coral reefs and all. Phil presses a kiss to right above Dan’s knee, his hands resting innocently on Dan’s lower thighs even as his tentacles creep higher and higher up Dan’s legs, dipping under the elastic waistband of his boxer briefs.

“Horny bastard,” Dan mumbles, not even making a single move to lift his hips and instead, letting Phil do all of the work for the both of them, lifting Dan’s hips off the platform and sliding his boxers down his hips. The cold of the platform against Dan’s ass makes him shiver, and he motions for Phil to lift him into the water.

“Mmm, like you’re any different,” Phil fires back, wrapping one tentacle around Dan’s half-hard cock.

“Now,” Phil says, peppering little, fleeting kisses to Dan’s neck and collar, “Tell me about this ‘sort of a sex thing.””

“Shit.” Dan flushes a brilliant red. “I was hoping you had forgotten.”

“I’m fluent in English after being around it for two weeks,” Phil reminds him. “I don’t forget things that quickly.”

“Can you speak like. I don’t know, sea urchin and stuff? Can I hear?” Dan asks, his curiosity overriding his lust for the briefest of moments. Phil frowns, flicking Dan’s nipple with the tip of a tentacle.

“I think it’s too high for a human to hear. It’s something along the lines of–” he presses his lips together but nothing comes out, at least nothing Dan can hear.

“Fascinating,” Dan gasps as Phil’s lips resume their earlier ministrations. “I’m gonna have to make up some excuse to bring other animals in here to test that out.” 

“Mmm. What about the ‘daddy’ thing, though?”

“Oh. right.” Dan clears his throat. “Well, it’s a power dynamic thing in, uh, sex, I guess?”

“Go on,” Phil encourages, gripping Dan’s waist with his hands and bringing him in, still working his lips against Dan’s neck. Dan’s feet tangle with Phil’s tentacles and he gasps, closing his eyes and shivering slightly.

“I-it, um, so you have dominants and submissives, right, and it’s something that a sub calls a dom and holy fuck _please_ , Phil, just touch me already–”

“Oh, we have something like that too,” Phil says, breaking into an excited grin. “It doesn’t translate very nicely, but we do have things like that.”

“We have a lot of things like that,” Dan gasps. “They’re called kinks. Bondage – tying people up, which I think we’re both already _very_  familiar with – daddy kink, pain kink, foot fetishes, orgasm denial– I mean you name it there’s probably an internet forum for people who are into that.”

“How do you do ‘orgasm denial?’” Phil asks.

“If you put this thing, called a cock ring, on, it doesn’t let people with penises cum. It goes around the base of the cock and squeezes really tight. People sometimes also just take away stimulation and let the person calm down before continuing stimulation. That’s technically called ‘edging,’ but it’s the same thing in principle.”

“Which ones are _you_ into?” Phil asks, smirking devilishly. Dan sticks out his tongue.

“I guess you’ll just have to find out.”

“You’re no fun,” Phil pouts. “I don’t want to make it bad for you, so you need to tell me.”

“Fine,” Dan concedes. “Ask me right before you do something, and I’ll tell you. Now _please_ just shut up and put that mouth to better use.”

“As you wish,” Phil hums, leaning in to suck harshly at one of Dan’s nipples before pressing up to kiss him properly for what feels like the first time in much too long. Dan almost groans into it, pressing forward and relishing in each and every point of contact as Phil gradually wraps his tentacles around Dan and pulls them together.

“So my claws,” Phil starts, and Dan would smack himself on the forehead but Phil’s tentacles pin his arms to his sides.

“They retract to the center of each sucker, blah blah blah, always hidden unless I feel supremely threatened because besides being sharp, they’re covered with a mild paralytic venom.” Dan’s mind whirs at a thousand miles a minute, and he freezes.

“And we have this thing where we prick the other person with this – it’s nonlethal, and just paralyzes muscles, nothing else – and then, well–” If Phil had feet he would scuff them on the floor– “We have our way with them.”

Dan’s mind shorts out, but the almost violent twitch of his cock is more than enough for Phil.

“Do you trust me, Dan?” Phil asks, his voice low and husky, right in Dan’s ear. “Will you let me take care of you?”

“ _Fucking_ –” Dan gasps, pressing his lips to Phil’s in a desperate, needy kiss. It’s sloppy and uncoordinated since he can’t use his hands, but it’s enough for Phil.

“Wait,” Dan says, and Phil halts, one tentacle caressing Dan’s back as he waits patiently. “How long does it last? What is it, exactly?”

“About thirty minutes and I have no idea,” Phil responds. Dan closes his eyes, muttering to himself under his breath as he runs calculations in his head.

“It will likely only take twelve to fifteen minutes for the same dosage to wear off of me,” Dan eventually says, popping his eyes open. “So work fast.”

“With you, it always seems to be,” Phil retorts, and Dan goes to smack him on the shoulder but one of Phil’s tentacles catches his wrist, holding it. Another wraps around his throat, and two more around each of his thighs.

“I’m going to do these all at once,” Phil says. “Ready?”

Dan nods once. Instantly, he could feel a pricking sensation to his inner wrist and thighs, and to his jugular.

“My pulse points,” Dan slurs, already loosing feeling in the bottom half of his face. “Good idea.”

Phil bites his lip and admires Dan, boneless in his arms. Dan tries to flex his fingers, his toes, anything, but every bit of his body stays stubbornly still. He still feels every single point of contact between him and Phil, however, as well as the slight chill of the tank water. He just can’t _fucking move_.

Dan already knew Phil was stronger than him, that Phil could kill him without a second thought and it would be like stamping out a spider. But none of that comes even remotely close to the sense of utter powerlessness Dan feels now. That, coupled with the delicacy with which Phil handles him, making sure Dan’s neck is supported and his limbs don’t twist around as he lays him over the metal platform, makes Dan’s cock swell.

“And while you’re like this,” Phil says, and Dan would be shivering if he had control over his own body, “Now I can test your true limits, not what you think are your limits.”

Dan’s eyes almost roll back in his head at that. _Fuck_ , he thinks as Phil spreads Dan’s cheeks with his hands, the slick head of his main tentacle pressing against Dan’s hole. Dan’s muscles are loose, relaxed – let go of, like he’s a puppet whose strings have been cut – and yield easily to the slick slide of Phil’s tentacle into him, pressing it inside and crooking it just right to flick over Dan’s prostate.

Then Phil’s tentacle goes farther inside, his suckers routinely attaching and detaching to and from Dan’s prostate and making his head spin. He wants to shout, to moan and squirm and push back and pull away, but the venom in his veins renders him entirely immobile.

“Look at you, taking me so far in, Dan,” Phil groans, and Dan feels the tentacle pulse inside of him. “Fuck. I’ve never been this far inside anyone before, fuck, fuck,  _fuck_.”

Dan wants to whimper and scream and squirm and bask in the praise. He settles for a sharp intake of breath as Phil’s sucker clamps down on his prostate, stimulating it in the oddest, most intense way possible. Slowly, every so carefully, Phil extends the hook of that sucker, pressing down with just the barest hint of pressure. 

The feeling is _indescribable_. Dan’s prostate – already one if his most sensitive areas – is being doubly stimulated with suction and with sharp pain while Phil’s tentacle still pulses and moves in his abdomen, the combination of sensations mixing into a heady cocktail that sends his cock dribbling. Phil retracts his hook and begins to thrust, pulling his tentacle out half an inch before thrusting in a full inch.

“I can feel the platform through your skin,” Phil marvels, rubbing down against the hard surface. All at once, his seven other tentacles reach up, over, and under Dan’s body, turning him onto his back without even removing Phil’s main tentacle from his hole.

“I want you to see,” Phil says, his voice low and rough and barely even half as wrecked as Dan is feeling. He tries to vocalise as much, but he can do nothing other than let his jaw hang slack.

One of Phil’s tentacles cradles Dan’s skull, forcing Dan to look down at his distorted abdomen and at Phil’s tentacle, slick with water and precum, disappearing into his body. Phil thrusts, and Dan can easily follow the line of the tentacle through his skin: up, under his belly button, almost to the bottom of his ribcage, and down, until his stomach rests flat and the leaking tip of Phil’s tentacle flicks against his prostate before surging up to repeat the process all over again. Dan’s head is spinning, and he can feel the drool trickling out the side of his slack mouth but he can’t find it within himself to care, too focused on the feeling of Phil, all around him and inside of him, forcing Dan to pieces and holding him together at the same time.

One of Phil’s tentacles snakes up the inside of Dan’s thigh and Dan’s leg jumps. Phil frowns, quickly injecting Dan’s throat, wrists, and thighs with another round of venom. Phil wraps one of his tentacles around Dan’s cock, tightening his hold to an almost unbearable point. A bolt of excruciating regret shoots through Dan’s entire body in the form of an orgasm that isn’t allowed completion, instead, adding to the all-consuming fire in his gut.

‘ _No, please,’_  he wants to say, wants to beg. ‘ _Please, please let me cum, oh god_ please.’ But he can’t speak, and even if he could he’s mostly sure Phil wouldn’t listen. The creature liked having power over Dan, which naturally extended to power over his pleasure.

This stillness is killing Dan. He’s usually able to write and thrash and scream when the pleasure is becoming too much for him, but this time he’s trapped inside of his own body, helpless to do anything except experience the pleasure rolling over him in waves. Somewhere, in his scattered brain, Dan wonders how Phil has managed to not cum yet. He flicks his eyes up, trying and failing to focus them on the tentacle pistoning in and out of his pliant body. What he does notice, however, is that cum is seeping out around Phil’s thrusting tentacle. He had already cum and was still moving.

Dan’s eyes flutter shut, his vision crackling at the edges from the intensity of pleasure scorching through his veins. Before long, he’s teetering on the brink of unconsciousness.

As if he can sense this, Phil suddenly lets up. “You’ve been so good,” he pants, his voice strained. “I’m– fuck, I’m gonna come again Dan, I want you to come, send me over the–” He doesn’t even get to finish, interrupted by his own cry as Dan contracts, white-hot, around him, pushing Phil into his second consecutive orgasm of the evening.

Dan’s vision whites out behind his closed eyelids, his cock twitching and emptying all over his face and chest and stomach. It’s probably a good thing he’s paralyzed because a scream that definitely would have been heard by probably everyone in the facility dies in his unmoving throat.

“ _Fuck_ , Dan,” Phil gasps, pulling him off of the platform and into his embrace. “You did so, so well for me, fuck, you were so good, Dan–” He continues rambling, every appendage stroking all the skin it could reach. At least, Dan’s pretty sure that’s what happens. He passes out.

***

When Dan comes to he’s still in Phil’s embrace, the octanthroid staring at him with what Dan would best describe as fond reverence.

“You good?” Phil asks softly, pulling Dan’s wet hair back off his forehead. Dan wiggles on hand, then the other, then both feet.

“All digits checked and accounted for,” he says. He’s surprised his voice isn’t shredded to hell, then he remembers that he wasn’t exactly able to use it.

“Holy fucking shit,” Dan breathes, their previous activities flashing through his head in a technicolour replay. “We are doing that again. I don’t give a fuck. But it’s happening.”

“Okay,” Phil agrees, holding Dan just a little bit tighter. Dan hums and buries his face in Phil’s chest, wrapping his arms around Phil’s waist. Dan doesn’t know how much longer they have together, him and Phil. The grant managers said six months, but a lot can happen in six months, and not enough can happen in six months.

Dan knows he’s selfish, but he wants forever. He wants a secluded beachside house in the Carribean, or Fiji, or maybe the Bahamas. He wants a secure future and mismatched furniture and Phil. He wants Phil’s snarky comments and salty kisses and mind-blowing sex. He wants everything.

They have six months left together. Six guaranteed months. And sure, Dan should be running a cognitive interview, or taking samples of Phil’s skin, or extracting and examining the exact venom he just had coursing through his veins not even ten minutes ago. He should be doing anything other than curling up into Phil’s chest, letting him suspend the both of them in a plexiglass tank with simulated currents.

But Dan wants everything. So he’s going to milk every moment for all that it’s worth.


	5. Chapter 5

_Fishes live in the sea, as men do a-land; the great ones eat up the little ones._

_\- William Shakespeare_

 

“Cairo is remodeling,” Phil says, interpreting Dan’s blank stare at the mounds of sandbags and small tanks of assorted underwater greenery as a question. “She said she’ll start today. Gonna move me, drain it out, then put the shit in. I get to stay in a small as fuck tank for the next three days, then, score.” He huffs, twisting himself in languid circles.

 

“At least you won’t be stuck in such a blank tank, though?” Dan offers, his uncertainty changing his statement to a question. Phil hums, floating parallel to the floor.

 

“It doesn’t make much of a difference to me, to be honest. It’s like if you get stuck in an empty room. Sure, some shelves and a sofa are nice, but you still don’t have books or a television.”

 

“That was… oddly philosophical,” Dan hums, hoisting himself up the stairs. His bones creak and ache from overworking and lack of sleep, but he pushes it to the back of his mind. Phil swims up beside him, separated by three-inch glass and thousands of years of evolution. They each trail their hands against their respective sides of the glass, moving in silent symmetry.

 

Dan falls to his knees as he reaches the top of the stairs, taking Phil’s cheeks in his hands and pressing their foreheads together. He’s been able to mostly get away with leaving the plexiglass lid of the tank most if not all of the way open, despite his teammate’s fears that Phil could climb out of the tank.

 

“You better not stay here all night,” Phil whispers, tilting his chin to press a salty, fleeting kiss to Dan’s lips. Dan sighs, forcing his drooping eyelids open even as he gradually started slumping down. Phil didn’t say anything, just let him lie down, wrapping his arms and tentacles around Dan as he rested his head on his arm.

 

“Will you talk to me?” Dan asks, his voice small and almost childlike. Phil hums, an affectionate smile springing across his face and lighting up his eyes.

 

“How about I do you one better?” Phil counters, leaning in to press his nose to Dan’s skin, inhaling the musky, heady scent of the researcher. Dan’s responding noise is unspecific and far away, but Phil carries on regardless.

 

“I learned some things from my siren friends in the Philippines,” he continues, his voice low and soft. Dan curls closer to him, tucking his knees and free arm to his chest and letting Phil envelop him.

 

Phil opens his lips and begins to sing, his voice soft and piercing and angelic, the sounds immediately relaxing Dan’s muscles and mind, making him feel safe. Loved. Phil doesn’t sing words he sings feelings, his voice rising and reverberating in ways Dan has never heard before, ways Dan thinks humans aren’t even capable of. It’s beautiful and alien and so unmistakably _Phil,_ his voice, his feelings, his heart.

 

Dan slips into sleep like a broken ship to the bottom of the sea, his eyelids bobbing open once, twice, before sliding shut for good.

 

His dreams are filled with Phil, bright blue eyes and sea-salt breezes and two pairs of legs tangled together under white cotton sheets. He dreams of his apartment in Massachusetts, of a fictional house he knows he can call home, of hand-holding and walks on the beach and adoption paperwork. Her name is Mara. Her laugh bubbles like the sea and her black eyes swirl like tidal pools, swirling, swirling down the drain, like a switch has been flipped, and all Dan can see is black. Loss. Loneliness. He reaches for something he knows is there, some _one_ , his hands groping, grasping, stretching, reaching–

 

Cool, strong hands wrap in Dan’s own and salty lips kiss his tears away.

 

“Dan, Dan, it’s okay, you were dreaming, it’s okay, I’m here, it was all just a dream…”

 

“I know,” Dan chokes. His fingernails clip Phil’s chin as he throws his arms around his shoulders, holding tight and pulling him in close. He cries long and hard, sobs racking his chest as he clings to Phil like a lifeline. Phil’s hands smooth over his back, his tentacles coming up to drape and squeeze around Dan’s hips, his waist, his thighs.

 

“I’m here, Dan,” Phil whispers, the slow, steady thrum of his heart lulling Dan back to calm. “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.” Neither of them acknowledge the ticking clock on his statement, the ever-running time limit set on their relationship. That is, unless they’re found out, first. But they won’t be. Dan is careful, beyond careful, it can’t – it _won’t_ happen.

 

“Go,” Phil whispers softly, not letting go or loosening his grip. “You need to go and get some sleep. You’re no good to anyone if you’re dead on your feet.”

 

“Okay,” Dan says, tightening his grip. Phil smells like tropical beaches and dead fish and everything Dan has ever wanted and more.

 

“I’m not going anywhere,” Phil says.

 

“I know,” Dan says, and his voice shakes. “I know.”

 

***

 

“So we’re remodeling now?” Dan asks, waltzing into the tank room with a triple-shot latte clutched in his white knuckles. Cairo hums in agreement, casting continuous sidelong glances at Phil, who twirls solemnly in the center of his tank.

 

“We need to drain the tank to refit it,” she says, peeling her distrusting gaze from Phil and softening it, turning it on Dan. Dan nods, taking a long pull of his coffee.

 

“And while we’re draining it, it’s as good a time as any to run tests on what I can, excrement and stuff like that.”

 

Dan is an adult scientist. And he knows adult scientist are not supposed to spit-take hot coffee onto their coworkers when discussing something that should be routine. Which doesn’t mean that he doesn’t almost do it anyways.

 

“You okay?” Cairo asks as he chokes on his drink. Dan nods, pounding his chest and coughing.

 

“Yeah, sorry. Wow, that’s hot,” he offers, wincing a little bit at his weak cover. Cairo is too distracted by Phil to notice it, however, and he thanks his lucky stars.

 

“You want help?” Dan asks. Cairo thinks for a moment, then shrugs.

 

“Yeah, I think so. I don’t want to freak him out too badly, so it’ll be best to have someone in the tank he’s familiar with when I start draining it.

 

“Sounds good,” Dan says, already pulling off his shirt and bolting for his skinsuit. He bounds up the stairs and splashes into the tank, floundering for a few moments before grabbing a breathing tube and diving down. He hovers a few feet away from Phil and gives Cairo a thumbs-up. She nods back, messing with a panel of buttons and switches and Dan feels the water start to sway as it rushes down the drain.

 

It takes upwards of an hour to drain the tank to the point where they can move Phil (with a series of ropes and nets and colurful cursing on every participant’s part) into the small transitional tank, leaving him with a sour look on his face and everyone else soaked to the bone.

 

Cairo and Leonard and the dozen or so nameless olive-shirted men make quick work of the sand bags, dumping them into the tank and arranging the rocks across the top. Dan hangs out by Phil’s tank, watching them all move and lift and arrange, but not seeing anything. All he can think about is the fact that, when Cairo tests the water, she will find traces of human semen. _Dan’s_ semen. He wants to throw up.

 

Phil notices his unease, hovering close to him and pressing his palm against the glass of the tank. Dan presses his hand against the tank too, closing his eyes and breathing in and doing his best to steady himself even as the world spins itself to pieces around him.

 

***

 

The team breaks for lunch but Dan doesn’t go with them, claiming he feels bad for Phil having to live in the small tank for now. Amaris just laughs at him, having heard all about the cuttlefish incident, but Marissa regards him with a cocked eyebrow before eventually shaking her head slowly and allowing it.

 

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?” Phil asks as soon as the door slides shut behind Leonard, leaning over the top of the tank to reach down and take Dan’s hand. Dan shakes his head, his tongue suddenly feeling much too big for his mouth, He swallows against the dryness in his throat.

 

“Cairo’s gonna test the water,” he croaks, the words sticking to his tongue even as he forces them past cracking lips. Phil’s brows crease, then a look of realization dawns across his features and his jaw drops open.

 

“Oh,” he whispers.

 

“Oh,” Dan echoes. A drop of water from Phil’s hair lands on Dan’s skin. Phil shifts his armpits against the lip of the tank.

 

“I can’t just screw with the data,” Dan finally says. Phil looks at him with an unreadable expression. “She’ll be double- and triple-checking everything, and there’s no way I can get to it all fast enough. And I can’t just sub it out, she’ll know when she gets results that she didn’t test the samples from your tank.” He scrapes his hair out of his eyes, running his hand through it and making it stand all on end.

 

“She’s already running on frayed nerves,” Dan says quietly. “If I can– if somehow…” He trails off. Phil’s skin itches under the pregnant silence. He jerks his head in a nod of understanding.

 

“I have a couple of ideas,” Dan says, staring straight ahead. He can’t meet Phil’s eyes. “But I would need your help.”

 

Phil finds himself nodding before he even processes Dan’s words. “Of course.” HIs voice is barely more than a whisper. “Whatever you need, whatever it takes, just tell me.”

 

***

 

The creak of a pipe overhead makes Cairo jump. She glances up furtively, her eyes scanning the industrial off-white pallet, trying to locate the source of the noise. It takes fifty quick steps for her to calm down, though she can still hear her heart beating against her ribcage.

 

“Stupid,” she berates herself under her breath. “Getting scared over the smallest things, get over yourself!” Her words and footsteps echo down the long, empty hall, and Cairo pulls her sweater a little tighter around herself. This is the first – and if she has anything at all to say about it, _last_ – night shift she’s taken. Her footsteps speed up, and she keeps her eyes up as she hurries towards the tank room. Sh makes a mental note to thank Dan for always taking the night shift, even though his recent enthusiasm is a little bit disconcerting…

 

With a sharp jerk of her head, Cairo shakes the thought away. She forces herself to think about something else, anything else. The tests she can run on Phil’s tank water in the morning, for example. The unmarked door looms ahead of her, and Cairo focuses intently on coliform bacteria and not the slight tremble in her hands.

 

The tank room is too large and too empty without the other researchers, Cairo thinks. She steps over to the bay of monitors, fumbling with the log book and taking much too long to record basic sets of data like the ones she’s been dealing with for most of her life.

 

On unsteady legs, she climbs the metal staircase. Phil, for the most part, looks uninterested, floating in meandering circles near the middle of the tank. He turns away from her and rolls his shoulders. Cairo has a brief, sudden flash of empathy for the creature.

 

 _I can see where Dan’s coming from_ , she thinks, her eyes fixed on Phil as she winds higher and higher. _He seems sentient… almost human_. But she discards those thoughts as soon as she has them. Get to the top. Feed. Record. Go back to bed. Four simple steps.

 

The top of the tank is much farther from the ground than Cairo remembers it being. Her vision blurs, but she takes a deep breath. Feed. Record. Go back to bed.

 

Two metal buckets rest innocently at the edge of the platform, emanating soft splashes every once in a while. Cairo peers into the first one. Two live calamari. She peers into the other. A lobster. Damn, this freak of nature is eating better than she does.

 

With bated breath, Cairo tips the calamari into the tank. The squids give a little twirl and dash away, spinning giddily into their new-found, short-lived freedom. Cairo picks up the bucket holding the lobster, but she hesitates. She squints into the tank, her eyes flickering over the two calamari squids. Phil is nowhere to be seen.

 

Panic rises in Cairo’s throat and she drops to her knees, leaning over so far her nose almost brushes the water. Record. Go back to bed.

 

The bucket clangs against the platform and the lobster sinks like a rock in the tank and Cairo starts, whirling around to glance behind her. A scream works its way into her chest, sticking like a briar in her throat.

 

Dripping seawater and with a sleek, sadistic smile, Phil wraps one tentacle around each of Cairo’s ankles and drags her into the tank.

 

Cairo’s scream echoes around the too big room and the bottom of her chin clips the metal platform as she sinks into the tank. She tastes blood and sees static, her stinging mouth open in a shriek that falls on deaf ears.

 

She inhales a mouthful of water and she chokes, salt and bile rushing up her throat as she tries her best to hold her breath. Her head breaks the water and she gasps in a mouthful of air before being dragged back down.

 

She barely registers the murmuring voice until it says her name. Salt stings her eyes when they fly open, desperately fighting every instinct in her body which tells her to scream.

 

“Cairo,” Phil mutters, wrapping her in his tentacles and holding her out of the water.

 

“Y-y-y–“ Cairo sobs, thrashing and shrieking but to no avail.

 

“You see," Phil hums, “Some of us have secrets.” He pulls her down so they’re face to face. “Secrets we are willing to lie for. Die for. Kill for.” He plunges her back underwater, holding her under for a long count of thirty.

 

Cairo doesn’t know what happens next. She takes in a mouthful of water, then everything fades to black.

 

***

 

“–ro? Cairo? Cairo!” Cairo winces, convulsing up. Something around her chest, wrists, and ankles keep her pinned, however, and she collapses back with a strangled sob.

 

“I know,” she sobs, barely registering the soft mattress against her back. All she can think of are tentacles, slitted eyes, and sharp teeth. “Secrets. I know, I know.” Her breathing is labored and her eyes wild as she glances around, barely taking in the six people in the room with her.

 

“I don’t know what happened,” the man in the olive shirt said. “It looked like she just up and pitched in. Passed out, maybe. I got down there as fast as possible and hauled her out, but she was unconscious.”

 

“What about Phil?” Marissa snaps. “What did he do?”

 

“The entire time, he just stayed down at the bottom of the tank.” The man rubs the back of his close-shaved head. “Looked up, noticed her, but didn’t react, really. Looked scared and confused more than anything when I came and fished her out.”

 

Marissa nods sagely, looking over to where Leonard is comforting a sobbing Dan, then over to Cairo who is muttering something about witches and curses and secrets. She puts her head in her hands.

 

“What do you think is best, doctor?” she asks. An older man with greying temples who reminds Marissa a startling amount of her own father shakes his head softly.

 

“My professional opinion? She should be institutionalized. At the very least taken off the team, but she’s going to need months of intensive therapy to get over this, whatever this really is.” He pulls at the hem of his sweater vest and clears his throat. “I have a vacancy in a nice place in Spain, where they specialize in paranoia and PTSD like this.” Marissa nods slowly.

 

“Would you like to notify the relatives, or shall I?” Dr. Song is a patient man, an understanding man, and Marissa almost chokes on her guilt but she manages to force out, “If you would, please, doctor.” She averts her eyes and looks at Amaris, who regards her with a small nod, at Leonard, whose lips press into a thin line, and at Dan, whose voice is surprisingly steady given the sparkle of tears drying in salty tracks down his cheeks.

 

“And then there were four,” Dan intones. Leonard coughs. Nobody laughs.

 

***

 

“She’s gone,” are Dan’s first words when he steps into the tank room, blissfully reinstated on the night shift. Phil smiles happily, reclining in his best approximation of a sitting position on one of the large rock formations that now dot the sandy bottom of his tank.

 

“I was afraid I’d gone too far,” Phil responds when Dan makes it to the top of the tank, pulling the human in for a salty, dripping kiss.

 

“Mmm,” Dan hums noncommittally, shedding his jeans and quite effectively changing the subject.

 

Phil growls possessively and wraps Dan up in all of his limbs when Dan finally strips and lowers himself into the water, nipping and sucking the researcher’s neck.

 

“You’re mine,” Phil growls, and Dan gasps. “All mine. No one else can have you or take you away from me.” His tongue tastes bitter with impossible promises, but Dan just gasps and attaches his mouth to Phil’s.

 

“Yours, yours, all yours, he mumbles, early incoherent. Phil makes a wordless sound of protest, plastering Dan to his chest. Dan’s arms come up to loop around Phil’s neck and Phil rumbles, nipping hard at Dan’s lips and tasting blood. Phil’s tentacles come up, wrapping around Dan’s biceps and pulling him backward, supporting him until he’s laid bare on the platform.

 

“Need to taste you, wanna taste–“ Phil mumbles, dragging his lips and teeth down Dan’s chin and neck and across his chest, making him writhe and squirm in Phil’s hold. Phil takes his sweet time, sucking bruise after bruise into Dan’s skin, which is pale and pasty due to lack of natural light.

 

“No one else can have you,” Phil mutters, his long, cool tongue flickering over the head of Dan’s cock and making him cant his hips and gasp, a whine falling from his parted lips as his head lolls back against the platform.

 

Phil is quick to suck his way down Dan’s cock, his gag reflex nonexistent as he swallows Dan to the base. Dan’s eyes roll back in his head and he clenches his hands around Phil’s tentacles just for something to hold onto. Phil’s mouth is tight and cool and so, so wet as he sucks and swallows and bobs his head, his devilishly long tongue extending over his teeth and past his lips to lave at Dan’s balls, _Christ._ No one’s tongue should be this long, but Dan just arches his back and cries out sharply when he feels the cool, wet muscle lavish his hot, heavy sac.

 

Phil pulls his head back and Dan all but sobs, jerking and writhing as Phil’s sinful tongue wraps around his cock deliciously. Phil moans at the taste, sucking hard at Dan’s down before sinking back down, extending his tongue even further and harshly teasing Dan’s perineum.

 

Dan is losing his fucking _mind._ Phil’s tongue, Phil’s delicious, sinful tongue probes his balls and perineum, making everything a hundred times wetter and a thousand times hotter. The cold cast of Phil’s lips and throat only serve to heighten the head flickering through Dan’s veins, and he chokes on a sob when Phil’s throat contracts around the head of his cock.

 

“Let me– fucking hell, Phil, _Jesus_ – let me– fuck my throat, Phil, please,” Dan begs incoherently. half amazed and half embarrassed at how quickly Phil can turn him into a squirming, begging mess. Phil hums around Dan’s length and Dan chokes, his jaw falling slack when Phil’s main tentacle taps his lips.

 

Phil’s tentacle tastes cool and bitter and salty as always, with an undertone of something sharp Dan can’t possibly place. Orange, maybe. Or lemongrass. Whatever it is Dan swallows it down eagerly. letting Phil thrust his cock in and out of Dan’s throat at a brutish, punishing pace that only served to turn Dan on further.

 

He couldn’t moan, or cry out, or scream Phil’s name, he could only buck his hips and suck in harsh breaths through his nose as his entire being dissolved into white-hot pleasure.

 

“Fuck, Dan,” Phil rasps, his tongue flickering out from between his tips to kitten lick Dan’s slit every other syllable. Dan whimpers around the tentacle in his mouth. “You always take me so good, let me fuck you so well, baby. Wanna– fuck, wanna do this forever, just taste you, feel you, take you–“

 

 _I want it too,_ Dan screamed, not with his lips but with the arch of his hips, the curve of his spine, the half-lidded look of pure heat he sent the creature between his legs. Phil answered with a gaze just as strong, full of heart-stopping fire and wicked promises. He groans and – holy _fuck_ , it’s the most intense thing Dan has ever experience on his cock in his long, long, life of twenty-five years.

 

On some love, it makes sense that because of the versatility of his language Phil’s tongue and throat must be able to do all sorts of things, one of which (as Dan quickly discovers) happens to be to vibrate with gut-wrenching, cock-throbbing intensity, directly around the head and shaft of Dan’s cock. If Phil’s tentacle weren’t half-way down Dan’s esophagus, Dan would have shrieked.

 

As it is Dan arches his back so hard he feels his shoulders popping in their sockets from where they’re wrenched upwards but held down. He tosses his head, only stilling when Phil wraps a tentacle around his throat and hold him still. Phil’s throat vibrates again in a short, staccato burst before his draws his head back, panting harshly as he mouths at the skin of Dan’s trembling thigh.

 

“Fuck, I can feel your throat bulge with me,” Phil croaks, his pupils reduced to thin slits of black against clouded indigo irises. “Wanna stuff you so full of me, so full of my cum that you can’t even move, so that your stomach swells up like it does when I’m fucking you.”

 

 _Jesus_ , Dan thinks, his eyes blowing wide. Does Phil’s kinkiness ever end? Not that Dan has any semblance of a problem with it, mind you.

 

“Want you stuffed full of my cum, of my seed,” Phil whispers, licking a thick, wet stripe over Dan’s balls and up to the tip of his cock. Dan’s hole clenches around nothing and he rolls his hips when a single droplet of Phil’s spit rolls over the sensitive skin.

 

Phil dives back down onto Dan’s cock, his thrusting down Dan’s throat never for a moment faltering in rhythm. Phil vibrates his throat again and Dan’s eyes roll back in his head, his hips kicking off the platform as his orgasm hits like a sucker punch to his gut and he cums down Phil’s throat.

 

Phil returns the favor in kind, pumping Dan’s mouth and throat full of his salty, tangy cum. Dan can barely swallow it down as fast as Phil produced it, some of the pearlescent liquid dripping down Dan’s lips and chin. He wipes it all up with two fingers before shoving them in his mouth and sucking them clean, determined to not let a single drop go to waste.

 

“Jesus, Phil,” Dan says, well, tries to say. His throat barely even catching on the words and they come out as a whisper. his throat is beyond wrecked. He knows he’s going to have hell to pay in the morning. Maybe he can pretend he came down with something. “Where the hell did all of that come from?”

 

Phil just shrugs, lifting Dan into the tank and burying his face into the crook of his neck.

 

“I just–“ He sounds helpless, wrapping himself tighter around Dan. “I need to know you’re _mine_.” One of his tentacles worms its way between them, smoothing over the slight bulge of Dan’s full stomach. Dan nods, pressing impossibly closer. In a life of whispered secrets and captivity, affairs behind closed doors and kisses stolen away from prying eyes, it’s hard to convince himself that this isn’t all some fever dream, and he’s going to wake up in a bed in Massachusetts, his face checkered with the imprint left by the keys of his laptop. He understands where Phil’s coming from, needing constant reassurance that Dan is real and that Dan is _his,_ something neither of them can truly convince themselves of. In lieu of an answer Dan just kisses him, pouring out with the soft slide of his lips and tongue what feels impossible to put into words.

 

With a soft sigh and red lips Phil presses a kiss to Dan’s cheek and securely wraps Dan in every one of his tentacles he doesn’t need in order to swim. In his blissful, fucked-out state, Dan doesn’t even notice the indigo hue of Phil’s tentacles, much less deigns to wonder what happened to the teal.

 

“Sing to me,” he slurs, eyelids already drooping. Phil obeys, wrapping his lips around a siren’s call. Dan instinctively shuts his eyes, clutching Phil’s shoulders in his hands hard enough for his fingernails to bite Phil’s skin. He just wants to stay here forever, wrapped up in Phil. He has a brief, crazy flash of slitting Phil open with a scalpel, crawling inside of his skin and never letting go. Dan shivers in the coolness of the water, pressing closer to the slight warmth Phil’s arms emanate and letting the siren’s song lull him to peaceful, much-needed, sleep. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhhh!! i think there are only three more chapters to go (read: with how i have it set up now there are three chapters to do, but that is of course subject to change if i get ideas/want to, tbh)
> 
> what's gonna happen??? i know, and you don't!!! this is the power i wield. mwahahaha.
> 
> in totally unrelated yet amusing news, i wrote most of the porn scene on a plane and i think i gave the lady sitting next to me a stroke. ah well. totally worth it.


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